LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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ADDRESSES 



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FRAGMENTS IN PROSE AND VERSE 



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ADDRESSES 

AND 

FRAGMENTS 

IN 

PROSE AND VERSE 

by y 
JAMES SAGER NORTON 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

By EDWARD G. MASON 




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CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 

1896 



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Copyright 

By A. C. McClurg and Co. 

a.d. 1896 



I a-37£<oo 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Introduction vii 

VtXQZ. 

Parting Ode 3 

Abraham Lincoln 5 

Chicago Yale Alumni Song 7 

The Old Brick Row 8 

Reunion Poem 10 

Professor Precise 15 

Say Yes, Petite 21 

The One-Eared Man to the One-Eyed Maid ... 23 

To my Neighbor 24 

To E. J. G 25 

To Eugene Field 27 

The Old Story 28 

Rhyming Letters from Abroad: 

Algiers 33 

Naples 27 

Rome 39 

Venice 45 

Riviera 48 



VI CONTENTS. 



flrose. 

Page 

George Washington 55 

A Portion of the Old Testament Rewritten . . 60 

The Confessions of a Millionaire ....... 67 

The Rise and Fall of the Devil 96 

A Trip to the Nipigon 136 

The Bell(e)s of Yale 158 

Our Clients 163 

The King's English 169 

Posterity 179 

Yale in the West 186 

Chicago 194 

"Catting" 202 

The Rights of the Citizen to his own Property 205 

Mr. Jones's Experiment 222 



INTRODUCTION 



A LL who knew James Sager Norton will 
-^"^ take a sad pleasure in recalling the charac- 
teristics which made him memorable in the com- 
munity in which he lived and died. Even those 
to whom he was a stranger who may peruse this 
volume will realize to some degree what a rare, 
bright spirit has passed away in him, and how 
irreparable his loss is at his home and among his 
friends. 

He was born at Lockport, Illinois, December 
sixth, 1844. Here he lived and attended school 
until his seventeenth year, when he entered the 
Freshman Class of Kenyon College., He remained 
at this institution for two years, and then joined the 
Junior Class of Yale College, graduating in 1865. 
Though coming late into this class, he won many 
friends, and, soon giving evidence of the literary 
and poetic merit which distinguished him in after 



VUl INTRODUCTION. 

life, was chosen to write the Ivy Ode sung by his 
classmates at their Presentation Day exercises. 
After graduation he spent nine months in Europe, 
and, returning, became a member of the Co- 
lumbia Law School, from which he took his 
degree of Bachelor of Law in 1867. 

In the fall of that year he removed to Chicago, 
and in due season was admitted to the Illinois 
Bar, and began the practice of his profession. 
The year before his coming to Chicago, the sons 
of his Alma Mater residing there had formed 
the Chicago Yale Association, one of the earliest 
unions of the kind in the West, and indeed in the 
whole country. In this organization he soon be- 
came prominent, and repeated elections to its 
presidency showed the esteem in which he was 
held by his fellow-collegians. For wellnigh 
thirty years he attended and took part in its 
meetings, and spoke in prose or rhyme at all 
but one of its annual dinners. The wit, the 
pathos, the facile verse, with which he made 
to live again the merry college days under the 
elms of Yale, or in "the old red buildin's where 
we went to school," were so delightful that one 
had only to know that Norton was to speak on 
one of these occasions to be sure of its sue- 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

cess. Frequently he represented his dearly 
loved college at the gatherings of the alumni of 
other institutions, and always to the honor of 
Yale and the full satisfaction of his brother 
Yalensians. A notable instance was that of the 
dinner of the Harvard Association, at which 
James Russell Lowell was a guest. Norton, as 
spokesman for Yale, rising with impassive face 
and gazing soberly into the eyes of his audi- 
ence, thanked them in measured tones for the 
unexpected opportunity afforded him of behold- 
ing so many Harvard men pure and simple. 
Then, alluding to his having received two invi- 
tations to the dinner, he remarked that "the 
secretary had casually mistaken him for a couple 
of Harvard men." The humorous implication 
that one Yale man was equal to two of Harvard 
brought down the house ; 

" And e'en the ranks of Tuscany 
Could scarce forbear to cheer " 

at his allusion to a recent athletic contest in which 
Yale had been the victor, as an occasion when 
" Yale had played football in the presence of Har- 
vard." It is a real loss that this brilliant speech 
has not been preserved in full. Suffice it to say 
that Mr. Lowell pronounced it one of the hap- 



X INTRODUCTION. 

piest he had ever listened to, and its author, " a 
prince of after-dinner talkers." 

He was one of the early members of the Chi- 
cago Literary Club, founded in 1874, and became 
its president in 1885, delivering a masterly ad- 
dress at his inauguration. At many of its 
monthly meetings, receptions, and annual meet- 
ings, he presented papers or made speeches, 
some of which have been preserved to be now 
published. To its members were first read his 
articles afterward published in the magazines, 
and in many ways he showed his interest in it. 
He is one of those to whom that club is under 
deep obligation for the maintenance of its high 
literary standard, and for its continued success. 

The reputation which he gained in these asso- 
ciations as an admirable speaker spread to the 
community at large, without effort on his part, 
and rather against his will. But he could not 
prevent the growing demand for his appearance 
upon public occasions, to which he was often 
compelled to yield in Chicago and elsewhere. 
The New York Yale Association invited him to 
speak at its annual reunion on January twentieth, 
1893. Yet so modestly did he rate his own ability 
that his friends were hardly able to persuade 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

him to accept the invitation. How well he ac- 
quitted himself may be learned from the press 
of the time, which repeated his praises for days, 
and printed and reprinted his address. But 
only those who had the good fortune to be 
present can wholly realize the scene when three 
hundred men, on their feet, and some even stand- 
ing on the chairs and tables, were waving nap- 
kins and programmes and cheering the pale, 
calm speaker, master of himself and of the occa- 
sion, as he uttered, in the intervals of tumultuous 
applause, the brilliant sentences which evoked 
such enthusiasm. 

This address and the almost equally celebrated 
one made in 1893, in Madison Square Garden, 
New York, at the famous dinner given by the 
artists and architects of the World's Fair to their 
chief, Daniel H. Burnham, have fortunately been 
preserved, and are now published in this volume. 
There were many others, perhaps of no less 
merit, which have passed away with the winged 
words that he spoke. All of them as delivered 
illustrated the special qualities of his oratory: 
the calm, clear voice, the absolutely unmoved 
countenance with which he said the brightest 
and wittiest things, the happy and unexpected 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

turns of expression, and the delicious and origi- 
nal humor which pervaded the whole. The 
power to surprise and to please is as manifest 
in his essays and his verse as in his speeches, 
and all of his literary work is remarkable for 
clearness of view and quickness of thought. The 
charm of his conversation it is impossible to 
reproduce. He was a master of repartee and 
of epigram, and of a certain wonderful way of 
putting things, which, so to speak, illumined any 
subject he touched upon. His bright sayings 
will long be remembered and quoted in the 
circles which sorely miss him now. 

It should also be said that the productions of 
his pen were not those of a man of leisure or one 
who had made literature his occupation, but were 
the fruit of moments spared from an engrossing 
profession. He was a busy attorney in active 
practice, and held a high position at the Bar, 
where he was known as a safe and sagacious 
counsellor and an able advocate as well. Few 
lawyers have accomplished more for their clients 
than he, and more than one valuable estate to- 
day is a monument to his wise foresight and pru- 
dent management. On October fourteenth, 1873, 
he was married to Miss Frances Rumsey, the 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

daughter of George F. Rumsey, of Chicago. His 
widow and two daughters survive. His only son 
died in infancy. 

In the prime of his life, in the maturity of his 
powers, Mr. Norton's health began to fail. A 
year of travel abroad was of benefit to him, but 
after his return it was found that he was suffering 
from a fatal disease. A lingering illness ensued, 
which he bore with heroic patience and endur- 
ance. Never man faced the great conqueror 
more bravely than he. His soul rose triumphant 
over pain, and the old spirit flashed out even in 
paroxysms of almost mortal agony. His many 
friends will ever remember those last days at 
his beautiful summer home in Wisconsin, on the 
shore of Lake Geneva, where, though his form 
was wasting away before their eyes, the man him- 
self was unchanged, and smiled and talked as of 
yore. On the seventeenth of September, 1896, 
he fell peacefully asleep. 

E. G. M. 

Chicago, November 30, 1896. 



VERSE. 



PARTING ODE. 

Air. — Auld Lang Syne. 

"T^ULL many a song the years have taught, 

■*- Yet only one sad strain ; 

Full many a sweet experience brought, 

Yet one last hour of pain ; 
And now with voices wont to blend 

In happy glees of yore, 
We tell the joys, we mourn the end, 

Of days that are no more. 

Those years were summer-fields of flowers, 

And while we culled we sighed 
To clip the wings of happy hours, 

And there forever bide ; 
But comes the hum of toiling bands ; 

And floral joys we yield, 
To give the strength of willing hands 

In Earth's great harvest-field. 

The social bonds, the blended aim, 

That knit our souls in one ; 
The daily task, the joy that came 

With duties fitly done, — 
All, all we leave within the walls 

Whose shadows cast no gloom, 
And pass to where the conflict calls, 

And singly reach the tomb. 



FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

The saddest, yet the gladdest day ; 

For now the hope is sweet 
Of winning chaplets fair to lay 

At our Kind Mother's feet : 
And in our hearts the gentle spell 

Of memory ne'er shall fail, 
But ever stay the last farewell 

To Sixty-Five and Yale. 

New Haven, 

June, 1865. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
In Memoriam. 

Sung by the Yale College Glee Club, 1865. 

T li 7EEP ! weep for the noble dead. 
* * Spent be the fount of the tears we shed ; 

Hushed be our gladness, 

To mourning and sadness, 
Though sacred our faith in the soul that hath fled. 

Dead ! Dead ! Hath he tilled his field 
Only to fall ere the harvest-yield ? 

God who recordeth, 

He fitly rewardeth, 
And Faith sees the meed of his labors revealed. 

Well, well hath his part been wrought. 
Nations by such unto wisdom are taught ; 

Single to duty, 

He wore the high beauty 
Of holiness, — mighty to do what he ought. 

Long, long shall his name be bright, 
Blessed by the millions he led to the light ; 

Hallowed by ages 

Embalmed in the pages 
Of history, long shall it symbol the right. 



FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

Mourn ! Mourn! Toll the slow sad bell; 
Thunder the guns — for a chieftain he fell — 

Drape the broad highway 

And still the rude by-way, 
And droop the old flag he hath loved so welL 

Mourn ! Mourn ! yet the slow sad bell 
Must have a hope-giving tone in its knell ; 

Trust we our sorrow 

May bloom on the morrow : 
For God, though He smite, doeth all things well. 



CHICAGO YALE ALUMNI SONG. 
Air. — Auld Lang Syne, 

T X THAT though my blood be bounding now, 

* » And years have tempered thine, 
And ashes be upon thy brow, 

And locks of youth on mine ; 
We '11 find for every difference still 

Nepenthe in the wine 
That sparkles in the cup we fill 

To pledge the days Lang Syne. 

If there 's a chill upon thy heart; 

Then here 's a heart aglow, 
To give thee back before we part 

The warmth of long ago ; 
And ne'er a voice around the board 

But has accord with thine, 
To blend in even* cheering word 

The tones of Auld Lang Syne. 

Then let there be no seeming here 

Of pleasure lightly quaffed, 
But fill thy glass with kindly cheer, 

And take an honest draught ; 
And find for care and every ill 

Nepenthe in the wine 
That sparkles in the cup we fill 



To Yale and Auld Lang Syne. 



1S68. 



THE OLD BRICK ROW. 

Read as an " Anonymous Poem " at the Second Annual 

Banquet of the Chicago Yale Association, 

December, 1868. 

T AIN'T no poet, — least-ways not 's I knows on; 
A And mebbe 't ain't no use to make believe ; 
For when my notions git their party clo'es on 

The set ain't snug and somehow don't deceive. 
But sence I 've been a settin' here, I 've got 

A sorter sense of turkey mixed with goose ; 
And mebbe that accounts for why I 've strut 

Into a vacancy that fits me loose. 

I ain't a goin' to take no text to talk on — 

That 's too confinin' for a healthy rule — 
^'d just as soon pick out a board to walk on 

If I was student in a dancin' school. 
And then again it kinder seems to me 

A poet had n't oughter have directions, 
But go ahead and travel ruther free, 

And not be tied to makin' close connections. 

And so I 'm up to talk without a toast ; 

And first : good feelin' squares a meal, and hence 
A vittle 'pears to satisfy ye most 

When friends dip in and help themselves ; and sence 
We 've cum together on that plan, let 's jest 

Forgive the dishes for the names they 've got, 
And 'low our furrin cider 's 'bout the best 

We ever tasted, whether 't is or not. 



THE OLD BRICK ROW. g 

However, seems to me, 't ain't no gret matter 

Jest what the food is or jest how it 's dressed. 
The pith of this meal ain't served on a platter, 

It 's what each of us brought here in his breast. 
Jest like it ain't the object in a Christian 

To take Communion and then bow his head, 
And shet his eyes and ask himself the question 

How old the wine is, or who baked the bread. 

We 've all been down to Yale and been to school there, 

And on one pint I guess we 're all united : 
They either make a wise man or a fool there ; 

And as I 'm told the fools hain't been invited 
To come to tea to-night, I ruther guess 

It 's safe to say the sense of this here meetin' 
Is 'bout unanimous for nothin' less 

Than a right out old-fashioned fam'ly greetin'. 

That's the idee : so fill your tumblers up. 

The Lord that let ye go to Yale 'n the fuss place 
'11 take the pisen out of every drop 

Ye drink to her and save ye from a wuss place. 
(And every parson 's 'lowed to take a hand in 

Under a sorter special silver rule,) 
Fill up, and drink the toast I give ye standin' — 

The red brick buildin's where we went to school ! 



REUNION POEM. 

Read at the Third Annual Banquet of the Chicago 
Yale Association on December 21, 1869. 

P OETA when nascitur, beaucoup nonfit, 
•*■ That *s Latin, I fancy ; and this is the gist 
Of the classical saw of its mystery shorn, — 
When poeta, a poet, is nascitur, born, 
He 's not fit for beaucoup, very much, and if so it 
May be that a poem may be like a poet 
Unfit for beaucoup, and still be by the turn 
Of the same vice versa obliged to be born. 

When Adam, accounted the first in his class, 
Falling into bad company, brought it to pass 
That his term was cut short by a sudden vacation, 
And gained for himself premature graduation, 
On him and his heirs, for his sins of commission, 
Was laid, it is said, this relentless condition : 
To labor ; to live by the sweat of the brow 
In a field that requites to the laborer's plough 
But the thistle and thorn for the laborer's bread, 
And a grave in the furrow to be for his bed. 
'T was a terrible curse ; and it follows, perforce, 
That as we were in Eden by proxy, of course 
By proxy we tasted the apple, and we 
(Since qui facit per alium facit per se) 
Are enduring in person the curse that befell 
Of labor unending in peril of Hell. 



REUNION POEM. II 

Now I fancy sometimes — though I wish in a word to 

Disclaim any hint to the person referred to — 

If Adam in Eden had tended a vine, 

And gathered the vintage and carried the wine 

To his desert of exile, and stolen a draught, 

In the respite of toil at his wearisome craft, 

To lighten the labors with heaviness laden, 

And nourish his soul with the juices of Eden, 

He then had not lost all the joys of the garden, 

And might have transmitted to us with the burden 

Entailed by his ill-advised venture in fruit, 

Some happy device of avoidance to suit. 

But Adam was new ; into Paradise cast, 

A man all at once and without any past, 

And was in his innocence led by his wife 

Into some indiscretions, which later in life 

He doubtless regretted, and wherefore should we, 

In the light of our larger experience, be 

Restrained by the law of this case nisi prius 

From choosing the free-thinker's motto, "JVuZlius 

Addictus jurare in verba magistri" 

And working our will with the facts of our history. 

Let the precedents moulder ! Enough let it be, 
That we know of an Eden, far down by the sea, 
Where we gathered the fruit when no temptress was 

near, 
And gleefully tended the vine of good cheer, 
Till we passed as of old from the beautiful gardens, 
To measure our strength with humanity's burdens. 
We 've grappled the present ; what blame if we now, 
Leaving thistle and thorn and the profitless plough 



12 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

In life's barren furrow, take respite at last, 

Give the sweat of our brows to a breeze from the past, 

And dream still again that our Eden is here, 

As we mingle the drops from its vine of good cheer. 

From many a quest, like the wide-scattered brood, 

Who have heard the home-call in the meadow and wood, 

And flock to the Mother and far from the nest 

Find home 'neath her wings in the warmth of her breast, 

We have gathered to-night at the call of our Mother, 

To hold the communion of brother with brother. 

Outside is old Time — let him wait at the door ; 

Let him plume his gray wings till the revel is o'er. 

We have stolen his glass — let us clog the quick sand 

With the wine of Lang Syne ere it come to his hand ; 

Outside is the world, that implacable thing 

That cheats with caresses to kill with its sting, 

And feeds upon life it has fattened with hope. 

Close the door upon all ; leave the morrow to cope 

With the cares and anxieties bred of the day, 

Nor long for the sun that recalls to the fray. 

Here is memory's largess in bountiful measure, 

And hearts that are hungry for feasting and pleasure. 

Old Age, with his wrinkles half-hidden in smiles, 

Hobnobbing with Youth that his fancy beguiles 

Into seeming his own ; lusty Manhood aflush 

With the ardors of old ; and hot Youth in the blush 

Of life's morning. About us the redolent air 

Is astir with the flitting of spirits that bear 

To the banquet in exile the savors of home, 

And the shadowy faces of memory come. 

There is rustling of elms, and the sound of our feet 



REUNION POEM. 13 

'Neath their murmuring arches in fancy we greet ; 

Our voices we catch in the echo of song, 

And our features appear in the shadowy throng. 

Does it seem ? Is it fancy that sings in our ears ? 

Only memory that weaves in the woof of our years 

Shining threads ? Have we wandered so far in the quest 

From the roof-tree of home ? Have we laden the breast 

That impatiently panted for armor and strife 

So soon with the passionless purpose of life ? 

Let it be but a dream — 't is a dream of delight, 

And its hues are as fair though they fade with the night. 

Let us laugh at each one who has whitened his hair 

To the semblance of age ; let us merrily share 

In the humor of him who would tell of his wife, 

Or his children, and prate of the burdens of life ; 

Let us hail the conceit with a rollicking zest, 

If another bethink him to heighten the jest 

With a word of his flock, or the mention of clients, 

The chances of trade or the labors of science. 

? T is Carnival hour ; let the merriment swell 

To the madness of mirth ; we are under the spell 

Of a spirit that recks not of reason or rule, 

And the laughter of lips be the song of the soul. 

Let us sing the moon down with a chorus of old 

And herald the sun with the crimson and gold 

Of days that we knew ; let us speed the bright wings 

Of our hope once again — again drink of the springs 

Where the sweet waters well through the moss of our 

years. 
What is life, that we render it tribute of tears, 
And may not be glad if it take of our smiles ? 
Or age, that we hail not the dream that beguiles 



14 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

Into life the gray ashes of youth once again 

And wakes the mad fancies that sleep in the brain? 

But a truce to my words that are idle and broken, 
For sweeter than all is the word yet unspoken, 
The soul of my song — the one word that we hail 
In its fulness of meaning — the dear name of Yale. 
Let me turn to her now in the infinite grace 
Of her welcoming hand and the glow of her face, 
And lovingly pencil a song to her praise 
On this rose-tinted page of our album of days. 

Yale that sittest by the sea I 
Shrine of Ages yet to be ! 
Gratefully we turn to thee, 
Dear Old Yale. 

Mother of a mighty race ! 
May the glory of thy face 
Brighten through the years apace, 
Grand Old Yale. 

May thy courage falter never, 
And the crown of high endeavor 
Be upon thy brows forever, 
Brave Old Yale. 

May the skies be bright above thee, 
And the dearest praises of thee 
Be the prayers of those who love thee ; 
Dear Mother Yale. 



PROFESSOR PRECISE. 

Read at the Fourteenth Annual Banquet of the 
Chicago Yale Association on December 30, 1881. 

OROFESSOR PRECISE had a disciplined mind 

■*■ And he loved mathematics and not mankind. 

For years and years on each secular day 

Of the College term he had taken his way 

To his lecture-room, and for just an hour 

Had held the Sophomore Class with a power 

That never varied. The rest of the day, 

And just two-thirds of the night, they say, 

In his bachelor "den, with the shades pulled down, 

In a straight-backed chair and rectangular gown, 

He silently ciphered, and year by year 

Grew steadily more precise and queer. 

Miss Phcebe Severe, sedate and prim, 

Clearly adult and decidedly grim, 

Kept a Finishing School for unfinished Misses, 

And taught them science and manners ; and this is 

The reason she too had a disciplined mind 

And loved mathematics and not mankind. 

Now it happened one morning, by good luck or bad 
As the sequel may seem to be happy or sad, 
That Miss Phcebe, alert every moment to hear 
Any thoughtless expression not meant for her ear, 



1 6 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

Heard a Finishing Miss very foolishly say, 

(Apropos of Geometry task for the day), 

That she could n't see why a triangle should never 

Have more than three corners — that is, if it ever 

Should want 'em ; and this incidental remark 

Of the sceptical Miss, like a mischievous spark 

Jn a basket of shavings, lay smouldering deep 

In the mind of Miss Phoebe, awake and asleep, 

Till it kindled a strangely disquieting doubt 

That her faith in Geometry failed to put out. 

Full many a year had she taught to her school 

The literal truth of each orthodox rule, 

And never before had she harbored a thought 

Disloyal or false to the rules that she taught ; 

But now with a vague unrest she pined, 

For the spirit of doubt disturbed her mind, 

And a voice pursued her by night and by day 

That whispered in true diabolical way, 

" Triangles may vary ; there may be a lot 

Of two-cornered — ten-cornered, triangles ; why not ? " 

And one morning she 'woke from a dream to recall 

Triangles without any corners at all. 

At last, like a vine feeling 'round for an oak, 

She conquered her pride and set out to invoke 

The aid of Professor Precise of the College ; 

And knowing him not of her personal knowledge, 

She ventured because it had come to pass 

That the Finishing School knew the Sophomore Class. 

Professor Precise was a bashful man. 

He blushed, he stammered, he almost ran ; 

And first, in his utter confusion, he said 

He had seen a triangle as round as his head, 



PROFESSOR PRECISE. \y 

And then he explained by the rule of three 

That the sides and the angles must always be 

Equi-dentical — meaning of course equi-numerous — 

And fell into other mistakes equi-humorous. 

But soon, being filled with his theme, or perhaps, 

Since learned professors are still human chaps, 

Having slyly inspected the arid Miss Phoebe, 

Who was, to be sure, not exactly a Hebe, 

To the question of sex he was wholly blind, 

And saw but a neuter inquiring mind. 

Then with diagram, rule, and exact demonstration, 

He led her right on to the grand consummation 

Of all her desires, a faith without flaw 

In conventional views of triangular law. 

Here the worthy Professor of course should have paused 

Content with the happy effect he had caused ; 

But his pure mathematical soul was ablaze 

With the ardor of science, and on through the maze 

Of Geometry, — plane, analytical, spherical, — 

Calculus, — plain, obscure, and chimerical, — 

Dark Trigonometry, wild Conic Sections, 

And on in some other enticing directions, 

He led the rapt maid at a perilous pace, 

Nor paused till he reached the most dangerous place 

In all mathematics ; and then, ah, woe ! 

He stabbed her faith with a ruthless blow ; 

For he clearly proved by figures and lines, 

Parabolas, cones, and technical signs, 

That two mathematical lines may tend, 

For ever and ever and world without end, 

Right toward each other and yet never meet. 



1 8 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

Alas for Miss Phoebe ! she fell at his feet 
In a deathly swoon ; and, hearing her fall, 
The Sophomore Class came in from the hall, 
Passed a vote of regret, not a man voting nay, 
Then folded her neatly and bore her away. 

'Twas a terrible shock, and although she "came to," 

Perceptibly paler and slimmer she grew ; 

The doubt that once tortured her soul had fled, 

But another and darker had come in its stead. 

She had taught her Misses that lines would meet 

If they kept converging, and now this neat 

And plausible doctrine had been assailed 

By a master-mind, and reason had failed 

To repel the attack. There was nothing sure ; 

Science was shaken and insecure ; 

And as faith in her rules began to wane, 

She grew to feel that she lived in vain. 

Now mark the result, and blame her who can ; 
As she turned from science she turned to man ; 
And her heart, that had almost gone to seed, 
Seemed budding again, and then indeed 
She longed as only a spinster can, 
And so, in like manner, she laid a plan. 

She saw the Professor and begged for a pass 

To the lectures he gave to the Sophomore Class ; 

He hemmed and he hawed, but he could not escape her, 

And so every day, with her pencil and paper, 

She sat and took notes of the man and the lecture, 

Then lingered behind with some crafty conjecture 



PROFESSOR PRECISE. 19 

That needed a word from the worthy Professor, 
Who kindly complied, and seemed never to guess her 
Deep-laid design, though the Sophomore Class, 
Gently closing one eye, offered odds on the lass. 

One evening Miss Phcebe, now desperate grown, 

Remained after lecture and all alone 

With the simple Professor, and as she partook 

Of the banquet of reasons right out of the book, 

And the sweet logarithmical flow of soul, 

She felt she had almost reached her goal, 

For he seemed to be conscious at last of her gender 

And stated the rules in a tone almost tender. 

She heeded ; and said in a winsome way, 

That she doted on science, and that, each day, 

As she felt that her dotage was shared by another, 

And the lines of their lives were approaching each other, 

Of figures and facts she had fonder grown, 

Till she really feared, as she blushed to own, 

That she lived, alas, too much in defiance 

Of social demands and too single to science. 

Having sped her arrow thus tipped with brass, 

She waited in hope, and the Sophomore Class, 

Looking in at the window, held its breath, 

And all for a moment was still as death — 

So still, in fact, that Miss Phcebe could hear 

The Professor's old watch ticking loud and clear 

In his waistcoat. She thought 't was his heart beating 

high 
With reciprocal passion and ecstasy, 
And graciously waiving a formal request, 



20 FRAGMENTS TAT VERSE. 

Considered it settled, and sank on his breast ; 
And then, as he stammered, " Oh, my ! Miss Severe ! " 
She lovingly murmured, " Yes, thine — never fear." 
He reeled, he declared 'twas "a matter of weight," 
But she whispered, u not long," and suggested the date ; 
And the Sophomore Class, rushing in apropos, 
Pronounced it a bargain and quite comme infaut, 
So it gave him away with a blessing and cheer, 
And the Finishing School had a wedding that year. 



SAY YES, PETITE. 

O AY yes, Petite, to love's appeal, 
^ And take me — and the chances : 
In sweet communion let us feel 
The force of circumstances. 

We '11 take a furnished house, my dove, 
Let Stanton take our orders ; 

And then I '11 take my comfort, love, 
And you shall take some boarders. 

Then shall my usefulness appear, 

And your devotion shine ; 
For I '11 collect your bills, my dear, 

And you shall settle mine. 

We '11 keep no help, with petty steals 

To eat up all the profit ; 
But you shall gayly cook the meals 

And have the credit of it. 

At Grace Church you shall take a pew 

And go there on a Sunday, 
To better fit yourself to do 

Your washing on a Monday. 



22 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

You '11 find me slow to interfere — 
Save in my own behalf ; 

And never have to want, my dear, 
Unless I want to have. 

And should you falter in the strife, 
Or fail and fall in trouble, 

I '11 then consent to single life 
In preference to double j 

And cheerfully my footsteps bend 
Along some other track, 

Until your circumstances mend 
And gentiy win me back. 

So come to me, my little elf, 
My sweeter sweet than honey ; 

And bring me but your charming self, 
And just a little — substance. 

Chicago, 1872. 



THE ONE-EARED MAX TO THE ONE-EYED 
MAID. 

OINCE thou an eye for aye must lack 
^ And I an ear for e'er must miss, 
That we should marry seems to smack 
Of common sense as well as bliss. 

Happy the wife may hope to be 
Who goes through life a little blind j 

And lucky man. perchance, is he 
Who. marrying, leaves an ear behind. 

One eye to note my daily way 

May give thee more content than two ; 

And though thy voice is sweet to-day, 
Yet, on the whole, one ear will do. 

Weird though I look, whate'er betide, 

I '11 never be two-eared for thee, 
And I should never wish my bride 

To have or be too wise for me. 

Then let us hasten to apply 

This one idea, sweet one-eyed dear, 

And thou shalt cease to mourn an eye 
And I '11 no more lament an ear. 



TO MY NEIGHBOR. 

T ' VE a neighbor — such a neighbor 
■*■ Just as good as she can be ; 
(Which is all one can expect of 
Her or any other she) . 

She is fairer — somewhat fairer — 
Than a host of plainer folk ; 

And she has a certain manner 
Not intended to provoke. 

When she smiles her face relaxes 
(Just as you 'd expect it to) 

And assumes a pleased expression 
(As of course it ought to do). 

When she speaks her voice is vocal 
(As a voice should always be) 

And her eyes are not defective 
(Or at least they seem to see). 

Such a charmer is my neighbor ; 

And I always rave like this 
When I venture to describe her — 

As is due to any miss. 



TO E. J. G. 

T T E was a plausible oculist man 
■*■ -*■ And she was a cross-eyed maid, 
And scanning her face with a critical scan, 
In a positive voice he said : 

" For years I 've studied the organ of sight, 

And rarely admit surprise ; 
But really I never have met with quite 

Such a beautiful pair of eyes. 

" Of eyes attractive I 'm sure I 've seen 
A million, — or more, if you please, — 

But never were eyes of woman, I ween, 
Attracted each other as these. 

" I 've seen them crossed at every angle 

Acute, obtuse, and right ; 
I 've seen them lose in a hopeless tangle 

Their kinky lines of sight. 

" But the genuine spiral cross has never 

Before been submitted to me. 
I 've heard of it, read of it, dreamed of it ever, 

And now, thank Heaven, I see." 



26 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

She came and went and he treated the case, 
And talked of her wonderful eyes, 

And when he had cured the defect in her face 
She gave him her heart for his prize. 

But faultless optics no charm possessed 

For this singular oculist man ; 
His interest waned, and she passed into rest 

By the usual drug-store plan. 



TO EUGENE FIELD. 

T^ORGIVE, dear youth, the forwardness 
■*■ Of her who blushing sends you this, 
Because she must her love confess, 
Alas ! Alas ! A lass she is. 

Long, long, so long, her timid heart 
Has held its joy, in secrecy, 
Being by nature's cunning art 
So made, so made, so maidenly. 

She knew you once, but as a pen 
In humor dipt in wisdom's pool, 
And gladly gave her homage then 
To one, to one, too wonderful ; 

But having seen your face, so mild, 
So pale, so full of animus, 
She can but cry in accents wild, 
Eugene ! Eugene ! You genius ! 



THE OLD STORY. 

Read before the Chicago Literary Club in 
November, 1876. 

A BARK long tossed on a restless sea, 
■**• Bearing a soul to its destiny, 

Drew near to an unknown land. 
But darkness hung on the shore like a cloud, 
Wrapping land and sea in a sombre shroud, 
And the land sent forth no voice, no light 
To the sea ; but the land lay dead in the night, 

And the waves lay dead on the sand. 

And the soul looked forth disquieted, 
And saw no beacon or land ahead, 

And the soul said, Oh ! never before 
On the changeful sea came a starless night 
But the dawn came out of it, bringing the light ; 
And never was harbor could win this sail 
From the open main, the wave, and the gale : 

But what of this night and this shore ? 

The sea sang oft of a port to be made, 

Where the sails are furled and the waves are laid 

In a slumbrous calm for aye, — 
Of a radiant land that stretches away 



THE OLD STORY. 29 

In limitless realms of endless day, 
Where for ever and ever the soul shall reign 
In shining city and fruitful plain, 
Under a smiling sky. 

And oft when the day was chill and dark 
The North Wind came to this drifting bark, 

With a tale of a wreck to be 
On the shore of a barren and silent land, 
Where ships lie rotting upon the strand, 
And the brave and beautiful souls they bore 
Have perished for ever, and evermore, 

As the light of a torch in the sea. 

Ah ! what know the waves that pause at the beach, 
Or what can the circling sea-winds teach 

Of the land beyond the tide, — 
What shapes of death or what forms of life, 
What peace unbroken or endless strife, 
Gray wastes of desert or fields of bloom, 
Eternal day or Oblivion's gloom, 

That curtain of cloud may hide ? 

'Twixt promise and warning came furtive doubt 
On restless wing, and hovered about 

This desolate soul of man. 
And all unseen, from out of the realm 
Of Mystery, came and stood at the helm 
The pilot that here on the lonely shore 
Had waited this bark and the soul it bore, 

Since ever the world began. 



30 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

And so this waif on a pitiless tide — 

This bark with its soul and the ghostly guide 

To the beach came silently. 
Ana some there are by whom it is said 
The soul in that wreck on the sand lies dead 
And many who dream that it evermore lives 
Somewhere in that shadowy land that gives 

No mariner back to the sea. 



RHYMING LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 



ALGIERS. 

" A LETTER from Africa ! Ah ! " you will say, 

■**• " A voice in the wilderness crying " — but stay ; 
Don't pity me now, time was, it is true, 
When a touch of that sentiment clearly was due 
To the exile from home, — when the rollicking sea 
Was having its will of him shamefully ; 
But now, thank God, whose omnipotent hand 
Hath set bounds to the sea and made solid the land, 
That season is past, and the tide of emotion, 
That 's subject to change, like the tides of the ocean, 
The balance of trade, or the current of fashion, 
Now sets toward you — and you have my compassion. 
Poor fellow ! You linger at home amid friends, 
Where pleasure solicits and comfort attends, 
And yet cannot know as at last I know 
The uttermost happiness here below. 
I 've found it, and not — you may learn with surprise — 
In the balm of the air and the sunlit skies, 
The fragrance of flowers, the orange and palm, 
The freshness of verdure, the color and calm 
Of this tropical shore, but, thanks to old ocean, 
In the fact that it has no perceptible motion. 
Let the wind sigh low or in tempest roar, 
Let it blow where it listeth. I care no more ; 
I smile at the billows and scoff at the blast 
From the deck of a continent anchored fast. 

3 



34 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

And this is the land of the boundless wastes 
Where the lion is free to indulge his tastes 
In mutton or men as the case may be ; 
Where the gentle elephant flutters free, 
Finding in liberty purer joys 
Than come from peanuts and half-price boys ; 
Where the oldest families don't put on 
Fine airs or anything else, and ton 
Is something unknown ; where each missionary, 
No matter how humble his birth or how scary 
His doctrine, or whether he seek it or not, 
Is taken right into society — hot. 
This is matter of fact, but 't is equally true 
That I cannot believe it from this point of view, 
Where, snugly ensconced in the best of hotels 
I live at mine ease amid civilized swells, — 
Where a waiter from Germany, coming to me 
With a plate of the soup of the Chef de Paris, 
At to-night's table d'hote in the salle a manger, 
In avoiding a Lord who obstructed the way, 
Unluckily tripped and bespattered Her Grace, 
Two Counts, and a Marchioness — all in full dress. 
Surely here at Algiers one may safely allege 
That the darkness of Africa lifts at the edge. 
Here the Arab, as stately in rags as a king 
In his mantle of gold, hardly deigning to fling 
On the dog-of-a-Christian a glance of scorn, 
Stalks by in his barefooted pride, or is borne 
Aloft, on the top of a load that surpasses 
One's ready belief, by the smallest of asses ; 
And whether he walks or is mounted in state 
He carries the air of a ruler of fate, 



ALGIERS. 35 

For he knows with a knowledge as clear as the day 
That the only true Allah directeth his way. 
Here the Moor sadly muses on glories departed, 
The occasional Nubian chatters light-hearted, 
And here, over all, with his hand on his heart, 
But grasping a hilt, plays the Frenchman his part. 

But a short time ago — • as the passage of years 

Records itself here — and the men of Algiers 

Were the wickedest pirates — between you and me — 

That ever cut throat, and the scourge of the sea, 

So history says ; and I 've little ambition 

To prove or disprove : I have no disposition 

To ask of the native who scowls at me here 

How his grandfather ranked as a bold buccaneer ; 

I am far too polite, and besides, as a student 

Of men and of things, I know when to be prudent. 

But whatever her past, the Algiers that we know 

In the matter of morals is quite comme ilfaut, 

Nor better nor worse than the average place 

Where the tourist occurs ; for there 's no saving grace 

Can enable a primitive race to withstand 

The temptation of strangers with money in hand 

Who are searching for everything queer and old, 

Not knowing its value and careless of gold. 

What wonder if sometimes the man in the shop, 

Where in search of " antiques " you may happen to stop, 

Should prize the old dagger that catches your eye, 

Should recall with a perfectly natural sigh 

How it came to himself through a very long line 

Of remarkable ancestors, then should decline 

To consider a sale, tell the pretty romance 



36 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

Of that wonderful gem in the hilt, and perchance, 

Being overpersuaded, should finally sell 

This very historical treasure for — well, 

Say thrice what he paid for the same last week 

To his neighbor who made it — and made it " antique " ? 

But adieu to Algiers with its hills of green 

And its bay of clear azure that lies between, — 

A sapphire in emerald set, — and adieu 

To the Arab, the Mosque, and Mahomet the true ; 

This chapter of life I regretfully close 

And go — for a season — forever — who knows ? 



NAPLES. 

r HAD a dream of Paradise, 
■■" A dream of opalescent skies 
And waters flashing in the rays 
Of summer suns, a purple haze 
Of distant hills, a bending beach, 
A shining city, where the speech 
Of happy children blithe and gay 
With rippling music fills the day, 
And evening calls to softer strains 
Beneath a moon that never wanes. 
I saw this vision brightly beam 
And called it Naples — in my dream 

I sailed, one later hapless day, 
Into a dark and waveless bay 
Beneath a pall of dripping clouds, 
To shores that lay in misty shrouds, 
And smelt an ancient city there, 
That gave unstinting to the air 
A perfume neither nice nor new, 
And yielded later to the view 
Of unfamiliar eyes a masque 
Of Ruin smiling at his task, 
And Life cajoling Poverty 
With colored rags and minstrelsy ; 
And thus I found, that cheerless day, 
My Naples and her peerless bay. 



38 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

It matters not that other eyes 

Have seen her under other skies 

And found her fair. The sun may shine 

For joy of other eyes than mine ; 

The kindly breeze may waft away 

From other nose that rich bouquet ; 

It may not always rain all day ; 

It may be given to those who stay 

From year to year to see the break 

Of washing-day, or haply wake 

To note a paucity of fleas j 

It may — Oh ! anything you please 

May chance in time ; but how can I 

With easy conscience testify 

To things unseen that might have been, 

Or paint a never witnessed scene ; 

Let Naples be whate'er she may 

To other eyes another day, 

My Naples signifies but rains, 

Neuralgic and rheumatic pains, 

Chills, colds, quinine, and mackintoshes, 

Umbrellas, puddles, and goloshes. 

Hard by the city — so 't is said — 
Vesuvius lifts his ruddy head 
And forms a spectacle sublime. 
It may be so. In such a clime 
A mountain at a mile or so 
Is sometimes seen, and if it glow 
With inexpensive heat and light, 
Should be at least a welcome sight. 



ROME. 

'"T^HERE was once a double baby, — 
-*- Twins, you understand, or may be 

Duplicates would be a better name. 
'T was of that age known as tender, 
And were mostly boys in gender, 

But they had a future all the same. 

For they floated down the Tiber — 
Though it puzzles the subscriber 

To explain exactly how or why — 
And instead of being drownded, 
On a point of land they grounded, 

And ashore they scrambled high and dry. 

There a wolf, maternal, lonely, 
Yearning in her heart as only 

Wolves can yearn for something to protect, 
Found the boys and had compassion 
In the good old fenrnine fashion, 

Like a Christian of the strictest sect 

And the youngsters, being nourished, 
Quite alfresco, grew and flourished, 

And in time they founded there a town 
Which by Remus' kind consent was 
Named for Romulus, whose bent was 

Rather more for glory and renown. 



40 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

So the tale runs, and 't is clearly 
True as tale can be, or nearly, 

For I 've seen the town — no longer new 
And the river flowing through it 
With the shore convenient to it ; 
So you see the story must be true. 

More than this, — if more is needed, 
Which of course is not conceded, — 

I have seen the wolf and twinlets twain, 
Done in bronze or other metal, 
And the grouping seems to settle 

Any captious doubts that may remain. 

But 't is hardly necessary 
To my scheme epistolary 

That I trace the history of Rome ; 
So we '11 skip a score or more of 
Centuries with all their store of 

Great events, and to the present come. 

" Do in Rome as do the Romans " 
Is an adage old, but no man 's 

Really bound to mind it in the least ; 
Which is lucky, for indeed it 
Would compel one, should he heed it, 

To become a cabby or a priest. 

Let me say in explanation 
That the native population 

Seems to run to holiness or horse ; 



ROME. 41 

Just about one half the total 
Taking to the sacerdotal, 

And the other half to cabs, of course. 

And although it 's not conceded 
That so many priests are needed 

Where so little politics is done, 
It is clear as any crystal, 
Or the style of this epistle, 

As to cabs, there 's need of every one. 

Not for priest alone or tourist, 

But the fleas, — the very poorest, — 

" Ride in Chaises " over here, I find : 
And although they 're but a billion, 
Every single separate million 

Wants a carriage to itself — d' ye mind? 

Just a carriage for the party 
And a tourist a la car-te 

(That 's for rhyme) is fun enough for fleas, 
And the victim, Nolens volens, 
Shares his cab and e'en his woollens 

With the restless aborigines. 

And the worst of this arrangement 
Is the fact that no estrangement 

Comes to rid him of his vulgar guests. 
Whither he goes they will go too, 
And he can't ex mero motu 

Work a change of feeling in their breasts. 



42 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

But I think I hear you railing, 
And of course it is a failing, 

And I ought to note the things sublime ; 
But I pray you wait a minute, 
For the plan has method in it : 

And will justify itself in time. 

Better far to take the lowly 
On our passage to the holy — 

Working up the feeling by degrees — 
Than to open, con amore, 
With St. Peter's and its glory 

And to feebly perorate on fleas. 

Rising then to contemplation 
Of the things of reputation, 

Here 's the Forum well deserves a word, — 
Just a mammoth excavation 
And a scene of desolation, 

Where the voice of Caesar once was heard. 

Oh, to see again the Templa 
And the other fine exempla 

Of the art that poets long have sung ; 
And to hear the men that sat in 
Council here and bandied Latin 

As a free and easy mother-tongue ! 

Think of men — outside of college — 
Cracking jokes and swapping knowledge 
In impromptu Latin prose, and each, 



ROME. 43 

Even members from the very 
Slummy districts, making merry 

With the most punctilious parts of speech. 

Yonder where the rector solemn 
Sits upon a fallen column 

With his eyes on Murray's pages bent, 
'Rose a temple once to Castor, 
Twin of Pollux, and a master 

Of the dusky arts then prevalent. 

And the girl from Boston, sitting 
In a dress of Paris fitting 

On the block of marble over there, 
Marks the spot where young Augustus 
" Mashed " the vestal virgins, just as 
Youthful Gussies still do everywhere. 

Here did Brutus, wily master, 
Cassius and the envious Casca, 

Plot to hasten hated Caesar's end. 
Here Mark Antony, — to borrow 
Shakespeare's language, — full of sorrow, 

Came to bury, not to praise, his friend. 

Let us spend an hour or two in 
Merely glancing at the ruin 

Of the Palace of the Caesars on the hill. 
Where a deal of excavation 
Gives a little intimation 

Of a Roman ruler's domicil. 



44 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

Here 't is well — and customary — 

To remark how temporary- 
Are the works of puny mortal man, 

And how very transitory 

Are the power, and pomp, and glory 
Of the life that 's measured by a span. 

And of course we can't neglect on 
This occasion to reflect on 

Kingly Caesar dead and turned to clay ; 
And to wonder if it may be 
That he really can to-day be 

Stopping holes to keep the wind away. 

But it may be well to choose some 
Other topic not so grewsome, 

Or perhaps it will be next surmised — 
And the thought is far from pleasing — 
That we owe a fit of sneezing 

To a pinch of Nero pulverized. 



VENICE. 

T STAND in Venice — just as Byron did — 
A A-thinking obvious thoughts of land and sea, 
And mourn that he should first have stood amid 
Her crumbling palaces, and made so free 
With certain thoughts which now occur to me, 
And used the very language I would fain 
Have wrapped them in : Alas, that such as he 
Should first have found the field and stol'n the grain 
And that I can't with credit steal it back again. 



I 'd like to stand upon the Bridge of Sighs — 
If I could do it of mine own accord — 
And see " from out the wave her structures rise 
But that again 's exactly what milord 
Records that he did, and I can't afford 
To crib his vision from his point of view. 
Alas ! why could n't he stay and be abhorred 
In virtuous England, 'stead of saying adieu 
To native land and coming here to sin anew ? 



What Venice was in that historic day 

That dawned upon the glory of her prime, 

Let others sing in more exalted lay ; 

And leave to me, and this my careless rhyme, 

The city of the tourist and the time. 



46 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

The gilded ruins of an age of gold, 

The lingering echoes of a strain sublime, 

And this alone in splendor as of old, — 

Th' unfading light that softly lies on scar and mould. 

There is a time for memory and a mood 
For chronicles and glimpses of the past ; 
But here 's the fairest day that ever wooed 
The spirit to itself, and o'er it cast 
A chain of happy hours to bind it fast 
In sweet forgetfulness of other days ; 
And while its tinted lights and shadows last 
I '11 vex my soul with no historic maze, 
Nor thread with pedant's chart these still and watery 
ways. 

It is enough that on yon stately pile, 
Bearing the graven shield that blazons yet 
To heedless eyes, the pride that swelled a while 
Within the breast of some forgotten pet 
Of fickle fortune, sun and storm have set 
In gold and gray and wrinkled fantasies 
The seal of Time, the King : let me forget 
The span of life, and let the hour that flies 
Be to my soul the touch of passing centuries. 

I see the wide lagoons a waste again, 
Where beat the pulses of the sea alone ; 
Then squalid huts of men, out cast of men, 
The sails of Commerce seeking for her own. 
The city rising slowly, stone on stone, 
Beyond the reach of the incoming tide, 



VENICE. 47 

And all the golden years to history known 
Of thrift and valor wed and conquest wide, 
And splendors fit to nourish an immortal pride. 

Yet shall I see, this day, with vision clear 
As ever Knight of War and Carnival, 
The Soul of Venice. Forth, my gondolier, 
And push thy prow adown the Grand Canal, 
And past the Riva, past the Arsenal 
And mimic park, far out from gleaming shore 
Into the path of ships, till out of all 
The dim and distant city come no more 
The weary sounds and shapes of life : here stay thine 
oar. 



RIVIERA. 

F ONG I wandered, ever chilly, 
- L ' Seeking warmth and rinding not ; 
Came at last to Riviera, 

Most extremely favored spot, 
Where the temperature has never 

Yet been known to rise or fall, 
And the straw hat blooms all winter 

With the colored parasol. 
Here in March I find the fig-tree 

Putting forth its ample leaf — 
Once considered rather dressy — 

And the strawberry the chief 
Diet of the poorer classes, 

And the season growing late 
For the toothsome new potato 

And the green pea out of date. 
Here at last I find the sunshine 

Very bright and blazing hot, 
Yet in spite of all I shiver, 

Seeking warmth and finding not. 
Can it be the dreaded Mistral 

Sweeping down from Alpine snows ? 
Hardly — when from morn to night and 

Every day the South Wind blows : 



RIVIERA. 49 

Can it be a bit of ague 

Lurking somewhere in my breast 
Smuggled from its home and mine in 

The remote malarial west ? 
Ah ! full well I know the reason, — 

Reason too express and clear 
To be doubted for a moment, — 

'T is the English atmosphere. 

As the flakes of snow that herald 

Near approach of wintry weather, 
Each so very like the other, 

All inclined to drift together, 
So the really truly English 

Settle down upon the land, 
And reduce the mean caloric 

In the way they understand. 
Gathered in a land of plenty — 

Self-appointed lords of all, — 
They consume the milk and honey, 

And diffuse ice-cream and gall. 
Here a little British nation, 

Knowing but itself alone, 
Very proud of the acquaintance, 

Rears a little altar stone 
With a little mirror on it, 

And on humbly bended knees, 
Looking only on the mirror, 

Worships only what it sees. 
Here the truly British matron 

Finds it very, very hard 
That hotels are not exclusive, 
4 



50 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

That the climate must be shared 
With the native and his neighbors 

And with even, if you please, 
Us, the very awful, dreadful, 

From beyond the rolling seas ; 
And that really one can hardly 

Find a soul that one can know — 
Save at risk of one's relation 

To the classes down below. 
Oh, ye folk of London feature ! 

What a weary world is this, 
Where the plans of your Creator 

Thus have gone so far amiss 
That the upper class must labor 

To maintain its social crown 
Just because the lower orders 

Will not labor to keep down. 
But a truce to such reflections, 

Lest I lose the safer path 
Of the mere complacent tourist, 

And perchance arouse the wrath 
Of the friend at home — if haply 

Friends and home remain to me - 
Who with imitative ardor 

Loves the thing he fain would be. 

There 's another old resorter, 
Quite a personage of note, 

And a sort of standing target — 
Here 's at him with anecdote. 

Once upon a time, the Devil, 
Quitting Paris for the day, 



RIVIERA. 

Flitted to the Riviera 

In his own convenient way. 
He was seeking rest and quiet, — 

So his explanation ran ; 
But he really went on business, 

Ergo, fibbed it like a man. 
He had watched the tide of travel 

From the north to southern skies 
Grow in volume every season, 

And had noticed with surprise 
That his gains in that department 

Did not seem to grow apace 
With the winter population, 

As of course should be the case. 
He perceived that as the people 

Felt the spell of Nature's smiles, 
They became the less responsive 

To his own peculiar wiles, 
Seemed to lose their zeal in sinning, 

With the truth were satisfied, 
And in spite of all temptation 

Still inclined to virtue's side. 
Clearly he must now resort to 

Measures very prompt and strong, 
Learn how things had gone aright, and 

Then proceed to set them wrong. 
Long he pondered, with his finger 

Laid beside his Roman nose, 
And his eyes abstractly gazing 

At his few peculiar toes, 
Till at last he chuckled softly, 

Like the villain in a play, 



51 



52 FRAGMENTS IN VERSE. 

Slapped his thigh as sailors do, and 

Muttered to himself, " Je l'ai ! " 
Which, in Christian, means " I have it ! " 

Then he smiled the sort of smile 
That he wears when Faust the tenor 

Falls a victim to his guile, 
And with spirits light and airy- 
Sought the Prince of Monaco, 
Took a lease, and let his contract, 

Then had little more to do. 
Monte Carlo grows in beauty, — 

Saints and sinners pay the cost, — 
All the world is freely bidden, 

And the Devil plays the host. 
Not, of course, in proper person, — 

He has far too much at stake, 
With a world of careless sinners 

And the parsons wide awake, — 
But his tried and trusty agents 

Play the game and ply the rake ; 
And on summing up the season 

He has no complaints to make. 



PROSE. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

Read Before the Chicago Literary Club on 
February iS, 1877. 

EACH year as the 22d of February ap- 
proaches, we are reminded that the Father 
of his Country was originally born in a small way 
and as a common infant. Waiving his peculiar 
right to be born on the Fourth of July, he 
modestly appeared in the most insignificant month 
of the year, and at once devoted himself to the 
serious business of life. So far as history informs 
us, he had no great natural advantages over other 
male children, and started on his career with no 
special facilities for becoming President. 

He was at that time of medium height, loose- 
jointed, bald-headed, and inexperienced. He was 
careless about his dress, and natural in manner, 
impulsive and emotional, easily moved to tears, 
but deficient in humor ; fond of rest by day and 
excitement by night; simple in his tastes; 
monotonously severe in his diet; free from 
intemperance, profanity, pride, vainglory, and 
hypocrisy. In short, he had no bad habits 
which he could not reasonably hope to outgrow, 
and no remarkable development of character or 



$6 ADDRESSES. 

intellect. Indeed, it is reported by some of his 
nurses who still live, that at this period of his 
life the Father of his Country had a soft spot in 
his head. 

He evinced at an early age those democratic 
instincts which in later life made him the idol of 
the people. He associated freely with the juvenile 
produce of his father's slaves, sharing with them 
the glory of mud-pies and other primitive forms 
of keramic art, and winning their marbles as 
cheerfully and unaffectedly as if the little picka- 
ninnies had been germs of royalty or the off- 
spring of archangels. His pride was in his game, 
and not in his Caucasian blood. As a boy he 
loved his fellow-beings without distinction of 
color, and when he grew up and owned a good 
many of them, he valued the blackest man as 
highly as if he had been yellow or of some inter- 
mediate shade — the market price being the 
same. The natural feeling which prompted some 
proprietors to think more of the lighter tints was 
merged in the grand catholicity of his love for 
mankind. 

We now turn to an incident of his early life 
which has been strangely overlooked by the 
historians, but which deserves to be regarded as 
a most significant event. When he was about 
nine years old he became the possessor of a 
hatchet. He saw in this not the emblem of 
cruelty, — the tomahawk of the savage, — but 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 57 

the implement of industry ; and straightway ap- 
plied himself to the study of its uses. In his 
father's garden was a cherry-tree which bore no 
figs ; and he heard a voice crying, " Cut it down ! 
Why cumbereth it the ground ? " and another 
voice, " Woodman, spare that tree ! " He thought 
it might be spared, and he cut it down. 

As he was about finishing his task he observed 
his father approaching, and trimming a long 
switch in a quiet and thoughtful manner. The 
latter playfully asked George if he was fond of 
chopping, and whether he intended to do much 
more that day, and about how long he thought 
it would take him to finish the orchard if he were 
excused from morning prayers, and had his meals 
sent out to him ; and then, recurring to the fallen 
tree, he inquired, with considerable directness, 
who cut it down. George perceived the change 
in his father's manner, but kept on trimming the 
butt with his hatchet, and observed in his childish 
way that the curculio was a sore destroyer of 
cherry-trees; that the frost sometimes cut off 
vegetation with neatness and despatch ; and that 
only the day before he had heard a neighbor's 
boy bragging about a new hatchet. 

At last, finding his father unimaginative, and 
little given to speculative philosophy, he re- 
marked that, inasmuch as he found himself un- 
able to tell a lie successfully, he was convinced 
that honesty, under the circumstances, was the 



58 ADDRESSES. 

best policy, and he would frankly admit that the 
performance which his father had just witnessed 
was not an optical illusion ; and taking the pater- 
nal hand, — or vice versa, — he entered the house. 

In the parlor concert which followed, the 
Father of his Country, prompted by the Grand- 
father of his Country, executed the recitative, 
staccato, and crescendo in admirable style, and, 
without waiting for an encore, retired early to 
the seclusion of his little bed, musing on the 
past, and trusting that in this case history would 
not repeat itself. 

Thus, for a trifling impediment in his speech, 
our hero was switched off the line of horticul- 
tural industry into the example business. 

Later in life, he was married to one Martha, the 
Mother of her Country, an exemplary and stately 
matron, who doubted that it was more blessed to 
give than to receive, and compromised the mat- 
ter by giving receptions. His wife, however, 
with his farewell address and false teeth, belong 
to the latter years of his life, and it is not pro- 
posed at this time to trace the remoter conse- 
quences of his birth. 

Returning then to his childhood, are there not 
some lessons to be drawn from its incidents which 
are worthy of our study? When examined in the 
light of this history how transparent are some of 
the popular delusions of to-day ! He could not 
tell a lie, — we have his own word for that, — and 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 59 

yet he succeeded in politics. Can we longer ad- 
here to the modern doctrine of political neces- 
sities? We learn, too, that notwithstanding 
occasional exceptions to the rule, virtue hath 
its own reward. George told the truth about 
the cherry-tree, and suffered for a time in conse- 
quence ; but to-day a great city bears his name 
as a tribute to his truthfulness, and clings to the 
truth with a faithfulness worthy of its name. It 
is easier to tear the babe from its mother, than 
to get the truth from that city. He told the 
truth and suffered ; but a grateful people period- 
ically think of raising a monument to his mem- 
ory, and he has bequeathed his name very 
generally to the posterity of other patriots. 

Of course, it is not intended by reference to 
this grand example to indicate that Washington 
might not have achieved immortality by other 
means, or that no American youth can hope to 
realize his district school ambition, save by com- 
mencing on cherry-trees. We have moralized in 
vain, if this is our conclusion. We rather choose 
to believe that the method is unimportant if the 
principle be followed ; that it would probably 
answer the purpose as well to rob a hen-roost or 
steal a watermelon, provided, always, the deed be 
confessed if necessary. Let the boys of to-day 
study the example of this noble youth, who told 
the truth because he could not tell a lie, and we 
shall not lack material for Presidents. 



A PORTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
REWRITTEN. 

Read before the Chicago Literary Club on 
May 19, 1879. 

SOME weeks ago a certain eminent divine, who 
has yet the grace to be human, preached a 
sermon on Ingersoll as a Bible-critic, and in 
the course of his remarks frankly admitted that 
the orthodox churches contained some members 
who, by their bald and literal interpretation, were 
not less inimical to the Scriptures than those who 
openly attacked them. 

He said that the Old Testament should be re- 
garded and read, not as a veritable history, but 
as a poem. This remark so impressed me that I 
walked home in a brown study, and before reach- 
ing my door had resolved to remedy, in some 
measure at least, the error which the minister 
had pointed out. 

It was evident that the Old Testament was not 
commonly recognized as a poem because it did 
not look like one ; and that its parables and met- 
aphors were lost to the general reader by lack of 
suggestion in the narrative. Why should not I 
rewrite the story in modern verse (which to the 



OLD TESTAMENT REWRITTEN. 6 1 

multitude might seem a poem), and while adorn- 
ing the tale point the moral here and there for 
the instruction of those less versed in the myste- 
ries of applied Scripture? 

I felt that it was a grand conception ; and fear- 
ing lest some other philanthro-poet should antic- 
ipate me in the good work, I opened the family- 
Bible and commenced upon the first chapter of 
Genesis, thus : — 

u In the beginning," — that is, as it were, 
Along at first, — quite early, though of course 

Not quite at first, but formerly,. before 
Some later efforts of creative force, — 

and so on, the design being to show the very 
early creation of the heaven and the earth with- 
out committing the text to any positive state- 
ment as to the absolute beginning of time ; and 
thus to avoid the first stumbling-block presented 
by the old version. 

It is perhaps needless to say that the work as 
it progresses presents some technical difficulties. 
Thus, in doing the book of the generations of 
Noah, it requires some ingenuity to express in 
perfect rhythm and faultless rhyme the compli- 
cated fact that M Joktan begat Almodad, and 
Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah, and Ha- 
doram, and Uzal, and Diklah, and Obal, and 
Abimael, and Sheba, and Ophir, and Havilah, 
and Jobab : all these were the sons of Joktan." 



62 ADDRESSES. 

I have found, however, that on such occasions 
a metre formed by a peculiar combination of 
Walt Whitman and the multiplication table an- 
swered the purpose tolerably well, though the 
result, I fancy, somewhat lacks the poetic fervor 
and lofty inspiration of other passages. 

But to illustrate by a few extracts the charac- 
ter and purpose of the work, let us take, for in- 
stance, the story of the tempting apple, or the 
fall of man. 

It is not easy to gather from the old version 
just how the gift of the apple to Adam entailed 
upon the race the annoyance of perspiration ; but 
by changing the facts a little and the form a little 
more the matter is made as plain as possible — 
thus : — 



As Eve took a walk in the Park one day 

In the early forenoon of time, 
A serpent came to her and thus he did say : 

" Here 's yer apples now, three for a dime." 

She turned to depart, but he pressed her to stay. 

She lingered, — Ah ! there was her blunder, — 
And, twirling her thumbs in a diffident way, 

She murmured, " What 's apples, I wonder." 

" Why, really," he said, " is it possible, madam, 
You don't know ? Ah ! well, such is life ; 

But I never supposed that a man like Adam 
Would play such a trick on his wife." 



CLD TESTAMENT REWRITTEN-. 6$ 

" I see," she exclaimed ; "you mean that he ? s had 'em 

And never divided with me. 
Pray help me, good sir, to get even with Adam." 

" With pleasure, my lady," said he. 

Now he carried his apples all strung on his tail ; 

So he snapped off the end one, and said, 
" Take it, lady, and seek the old man in the vale, 

And put some hot coals on his head, 

" By dividing the apple and giving him half — 

Thus doing him good for evil." 
" An excellent plan," she replied, with a laugh, 

And she merrily winked at the devil. 

Then she hurried to Adam and borrowed his knife, 

And cutting the apple in two, 
Said, " Take a piece, darling, your own little wife 

Has been waiting to share it with you." 

He ate ; but the keen recollection of how 
He had treated poor Eve made him wince, 

And the coals on his head made the sweat on his brow 
That has stuck to the race ever since. 

In like manner the story of the Ark, which in 
the original version is hard to understand and 
extra hard to believe, when thus treated is as 
simple as a nursery rhyme, and bears an obvious 
moral, as will appear : — 

Now Noah, being wondrous wise, 

Foresaw a change of weather, 
He built an ark of goodly size 

And got his crew together : 



64 ADDRESSES. 

Of sons and daughters, bugs and rats, 
Pole-cats and polar bears, 

White elephants, baboons, and bats, — 
And all in happy pairs ; 

And mated frogs and wedded ants, 
And two of every species 

Of living thing, except, perchance, 
The water-snakes and fishes ; 

And then he started on his trip, 

Directed by the Fates, 
And he was captain of the ship 

And all the rest were mates. 

Day after day they sailed about 
Where never sail had been, 

And all the time it rained without, 
And Noah reigned within. 

He had a store of proper food 
And for a cook, his daughter, 

Who had no lack of gopher-wood, 
Nor far to go for water. 

He sorted out the animals 
With nice discrimination, 

And prayed at stated intervals 
For death — or ventilation. 

And when the beasts inclined to prey 
He kept the peace among 'em, 

Preached them a sermon every day, 
Gave out the hymns — and sung 'em. 



OLD TESTAMENT REWRITTEN. 65 

At last to Ararat he came — 

Released by saving grace — 
Laid out a town upon the same, 

And grew up with the place. 

Moral. 

Who lives a life of sanctity 

Shall profit by his pains ; 
For he will know enough, you see, 

To go in when it rains. 

But it is not alone in elucidating the text and 
emphasizing its lessons that the new version is 
useful. It serves to abstract and condense the 
history in many cases. 

Then there is much written of Samson ; but the 
average reader retains only a confused recollec- 
tion of his chief exploits ; and so for convenience 
the history of this remarkable person is boiled 
down into a few lines which contain the salient 
points, thus : — 

Samson's forte was catching foxes, 
Dealing death and paradoxes, 
Piling corpses up in car-lots, 
Stealing gates and trusting harlots. 
He was not a common one — 
Quite a queer phenomenon — 
But a misdirected razor 
Cut him off in wicked Gaza. 

Or at least it cut off his hair, which was about 
all there was of him. 

5 . 



66 ADDRESSES. 

And so I might go on with a mile or two of 
well-intended rhymes, showing how the dry facts 
of Bible history may be made juicy and nutritious ; 
but the proprieties forbid us to claim for such a 
purpose much of the time of a company gathered 
for secular purposes and somewhat subject to 
irreverent moods. 

I hope to complete the work soon, though I 
have lately encountered an obstacle which may 
prove insurmountable ; for I have reached a point 
where the metre requires a rhyme for Potiphar, 
and the plan seems to demand an explanation, 
acceptable to the modern metropolitan mind, of 
the course pursued by Joseph on one occasion. 

The first difficulty might perhaps be met thus : 

In came the wife of Potiphar 
And Joseph quickly got afar ; 

but just why he did so I have not yet succeeded 
in making clear and at the same time poetical. 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 

Read at the Chicago Literary Club Reception 
of October 30, 1882. 

" /^VUR Federal Constitution," said my uncle 

V^/ John, at the close of our quiet dinner, 
" protects us in the pursuit of happiness. Let us 
smoke. " 

And as he lit his cigar and took the first whiffs 
in the silence and perfect serenity due from the 
smoker to his favorite brand, I looked at his 
genial face, and reflected that without great 
wealth or fame or exceptional gifts, he was 
envied of men, and so I said to him, — 

" Yes, in this free land the pursuit of happiness 
is an open chase, but one in which the pursuer is 
always baffled. 

" Now you have followed the ignis fatuus till 
your beard is gray; but have you ever over- 
taken it?" 

" Well," he said, " I have never caught the 
flame in my hat, as some men are said to 
have done, but I believe that I have at last come 
within the circle of its light and warmth ; and if 
you can restrain your talking propensities long 
enough to hear me, and won't be too critical of 



68 ADDRESSES, 

my post-prandial philosophy, I will give you a 
little retrospect of the devious wanderings which 
have brought me at sixty years to a position of 
conscious superiority, in point of contentment 
and happiness, to most persons in our plane of 
life." 

Of course I readily promised silence, and my 
uncle John proceeded : — 

" I am the more ready to talk with you some- 
what at length upon this subject, and to give 
you the benefit of my experience and observa- 
tion, because I am satisfied that, as there is no 
problem relating to this life alone more important 
than this question of happiness, so there is none 
through which men grope so blindly. 

" There is in every community like ours a large 
class of persons who are above the misery of 
hunger, want, and most forms of hardship, yet not 
exceptionally fortunate in the general conditions 
of life, who constitute the body of what we call 
society. 

" These people have the preparatory education 
of the college and seminary, intelligence, con- 
ventional courtesy and morality, self-respect and 
ambition. These qualities commonly lead to a 
fair competence, and secure a social position 
entirely respectable. It is of the happiness pos- 
sible to such people, and especially some of the 
common errors of pursuit, that I am speaking." 

"Then," said I, interrupting my uncle, "you 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 6g 

propose to teach me how not to be happy. 
That is an art which I have supposed myself 
capable of learning without a master." 

"No doubt, my boy," replied my uncle, who 
was accustomed thus to rejuvenate me when he 
set out to talk wisely ; " but, while I admit your 
proficiency, you have not yet made all the mis- 
takes open to you; and perhaps by warning I 
may save you from blunders yet ' undreamt of 
in your philosophy,' unless indeed you are so 
wedded to your errors that, like love's follies, 
they defy both precept and example. 

" Of course you will hardly expect me to lay 
down precise rules for the attainment of happi- 
ness. I might perhaps give you one, — ' Be 
virtuous and you will be happy,' — but I fancy 
you would demand sub-rules for practical use, 
and might even then complain of the onerous 
conditions. 

" Life is a labyrinth of many ways, and we gain 
the true paths mainly by indirection, — by tracing 
out others to find that they lead astray." 

" But," said I, " is not all happiness a mere delir- 
ium, — a mental condition largely independent of 
will and effort?" 

" No," he replied, " not the same condition of 
which I am speaking. A drivelling idiot may 
seem to be happy in that he has no capacity for 
care or mental suffering; but he is not happy, 
because he lacks the power to know and appre- 



70 ADDRESSES. 

ciate. A man is not sane merely because he 
cannot know that he is insane, or awake simply 
because he cannot be conscious of sleep. 

" One may seem to find ecstasy in a grain of 
opium ; but he is not happy in his dream, — he 
simply dreams of happiness. If happiness were, 
as you suggest, a mere delirium, then must the 
world either abandon the pursuit, or consistently 
multiply the means and forms of intoxication; 
and the spell must be maintained : the judgment 
must never wake to know that it has slept, or the 
baseless fabric of the dream is gone. 

" But to drift further with the current of your 
question: I can see, of course, that there are 
often found happy conditions of mind that seem 
inherent. The world is full of laughing children 
who appear to hold their gladness as a birthright ; 
and there are men and women of such bright 
and joyous spirit that they seem to see the sun 
through every cloud ; and some, too, so maimed 
and broken, so crushed by real affliction, that it 
seems a mockery to talk to them of any rest but 
in the grave, or point them to any hope but that 
which is folded in the promise of death. 

" But I must remind you that I am speaking, 
not of the accidents of birth or temperament or 
circumstances, but of the average man under 
ordinary conditions of the individual and of so- 
ciety, and am considering how far — or how 
best — he may with the common opportunities 
of life advance himself toward happiness. 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 71 

" You will perhaps say that the churches point 
the way. True, there is a faith which lifts the 
spirit into a religious ecstasy, — a spiritual anaes- 
thetic which steeps the soul in a painless dream 
of happiness so sweet and so profound that it 
knows no ills and seeks no remedy ; but to some 
men such faith never comes, though earnestly 
besought; and the half-faith that pervades soci- 
ety and makes for righteousness at intervals is 
not the solace of every hour nor the sufficient 
help in all emergencies. 

" I am not deriding the pulpit or disputing its 
wide domain; but there is a field outside in 
which the layman may preach the homely philos- 
ophy of our daily life, and if the pulpit pronounce 
the theme ignoble, reply with Pope, — 

" * For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight ; 
He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.' 

" However, I am preaching too long a sermon 
as a prelude to the bit of personal history I 
promised you, and which I intend to be a sort 
of sermon in itself. 

" Of course I really commenced the pursuit of 
happiness at a very early age ; but it will serve 
our present purpose if I introduce myself at 
about your age, since it would do no good to 
put up guide-boards at the corners you have 
already turned. 

"At twenty-five I was the usual boy of that 



?2 ADDRESSES. 

age. I had not been out of college long enough 
to realize how manifestly I had not completed 
my education, and I had seen just enough of the 
world to fancy that there was hardly a verdant 
leaf in all my foliage. 

" I might then have enjoyed a sort of happiness 
in the fond consciousness of youth, health, and 
ambition, but for the fact that I imagined myself 
to be poor, and intuitively knew that I was a 
bachelor. So I resolutely set about the removal 
of these obstacles. As the way of trade was then 
considered the shortest path to wealth, I found 
employment in a mercantile house of some 
prominence; and a little later, having then se- 
cured an income sufficient to support about one 
man and a quarter of modest wants, I met a lady 
who, with the amiable propensity of her sex, 
kindly allowed me to marry her. 

" At thirty, I had gained a business footing which 
relieved me of anxiety as to the means of life ; 
and at thirty-five, I had reached a point where I 
needed only a little philosophy to make me really 
and consciously happy ; for I had then acquired 
an income which enabled me to live well, though 
not extravagantly, and to enjoy many things 
which I had been accustomed to regard as the 
far-off luxuries of life. 

" I had the blessing of a good wife, and knew the 
most exquisite of all human joys in the love of 
children. 



THE COXFESSIOXS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 73 

u We had a respectable social position just out- 
side the fashionable centre, and my work had not 
then dulled my spirits or drawn me away from 
the enjoyment of friends. 

"As I look back to it now this was, or should 
have been, the most delightful period of my 
life. It was a time of comfort without display, 
plenty without satiety*, and simple pleasure with- 
out pretense. 

" But the insidious passion of the business world 
had infected me : I was ambitious to become 
rich, — sensationally rich. 

" I had begun life with the hope of winning 
enough to provide comfort and the leisure for 
self-culture and rational enjoyment. But now 
that I had accomplished this, I could not relin- 
quish the purpose of gain. The things to which 
at twenty-five I had aspired, when reached at 
thirty-five seemed pitifully mean. I could afford 
to live freely in a single house, but my neighbor 
in the double house seemed to present a broader 
front to the world and to fill the eye of the pub- 
lic with a portlier presence. I could then well 
afford the modest entertainment of my friends, 
and could play the host at a quiet dinner with 
genuine pleasure ; but I wanted the sensation of 
lavish hospitality. I did not crave wealth for the 
mere love of possession ; I would not slave for 
gold merely to hoard it. And so encouraging my- 
self with the thought that I needed more merely 



74 ADDRESSES. 

as a further means to some higher end, I em- 
barked in new and absorbing enterprises, and after 
a long period of wearing toil, of anxious days and 
restless nights, of mental and spiritual starvation, 
I found myself at fifty a miserable millionaire." 

Here my uncle paused for a moment, and I ven- 
tured to inquire at what point in the millions he 
thought the average millionaire would logically be 
driven to suicide as an escape from his money. 

" I suppose," said he, " you mean to suggest 
that because the wealth I have amassed brought 
me disappointment it should by further increase 
render life intolerable. You are hardly right. I 
suffered not by the mere possession, but by the 
process of acquisition; and I am disposed to 
think that a man may find about as much dis- 
appointment in one million as in ten, if he knows 
how to go about it — as I did. 

" What was my system? Well, I '11 tell you. 

" In the first place, I gave myself early in life 
to a fatal error. I overestimated the power of 
wealth to confer happiness. 

" I saw about me on every hand men and women 
who lived in apparent luxury — who were cer- 
tainly free from the sordid cares which beset me 
— and I said to myself, ' These people are happy. 
They rejoice in elegant leisure, in the oppor- 
tunity for charity, in the indulgence of refined 
tastes, in the consciousness of conspicuous posi- 
tion and social influence ;' and I foolishly com- 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 75 

pared their lot with mine, and explained all 
differences by the disparity in fortune: and so 
I set out upon a weary pilgrimage to the shrine 
of my false faith, only to reach it at last footsore 
and disenchanted. 

" I had youth, health, and ambition ; and with 
these what glorious possibilities in my unspent 
years of life ! but I sold them for a million, and 
the sorry consolation that the world would not 
perceive how badly I was cheated. 

" The alchemy that would transmute base metals 
into gold was the wild dream of another age ; but 
we have found an alchemy that fuses into current 
coin the best elements of life, — the music, poetry, 
and passion that are the inheritance of youth 
from untold centuries of human aspiration and 
achievement. 

"I well remember the day — my fiftieth birth- 
day — when I made the inventory which first 
assured me of the coveted sum, and how I 
showed it to my good wife, and how she said, 
' Yes, John, it seems a great deal ; but somehow 
I don't feel as rich as I did the day you bought 
the pony for the boys.' 

"Strange — wasn't it — that after years of her 
own carriage and ample purse she should recall 
the poor little pony, bought long ago with the 
savings of a modest income ? But, stranger still, 
I could not banish it from my thoughts. 

" I lay awake that night, reviewing the career of 



j6 ADDRESSES. 

a lifetime, summing up its gains and losses ; and 
in the morning I arose confessedly a poor man. 

" With a million of money I could buy nothing 
but sustenance for a nature shrunken by neglect. 

" I had gained nothing that a fool with inherited 
money might not buy, nothing that the reverses 
of a year or two might not sweep away, leaving 
me poor indeed ; and I was a slave to care and 
anxiety. 

" Of the real treasures of the world — its art, 
literature, culture, philanthropy — I had won no 
share; they had enriched others while I had 
been trading myself piecemeal for needless gold. 
True, I had upon my walls admired paintings; 
but I was conscious that I regarded them, like 
the frieze or dado, merely as proper details of 
house decoration. 

" I had a library suitable to my house ; but so 
far as my intellectual needs were concerned, it 
might as well have been stored in my warehouse. 

" I gave the conventional patronage to opera 
and oratorio, but listened to the music in a dull, 
unprofitable way, hardly knowing the difference 
between an overture and a fugue. 

" In short, I found that for all the pleasures of 
life that come to eye and ear, to heart and mind, 
all zest had gone with wasted opportunities, and 
that for all that money could furnish such a man 
I had learned indifference. 

"There had been a time when to ride in a 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. J J 

carriage was esteemed a luxury, and when a 
good dinner with a friend was just rare enough 
to be remembered as a special event; but now, 
my carriage being a matter of course, I took it 
when the horse-cars would not answer my pur- 
pose, and with as little thought of congratulat- 
ing myself upon it as a luxury as I would have 
given to my shoes ; and as to good dinners with 
my friends, they had become duller than a bank 
directors' meeting." 

Here, as my uncle paused, I remarked that he 
had at least acquired the power to advance others, 
and perhaps gain happiness by conferring it. 

" Yes," he replied, "to some extent; but the 
trouble is that as a rule the habits of life acquired 
in the long process of accumulating a fortune 
unfit the possessor for philanthropic work. 

"He has no enthusiasms, no such love for 
any cause that to give to it would be a special 
pleasure; and so he gives, if at all, as a conces- 
sion to public opinion — as a sort of penance for 
being rich — and under a secret protest. In 
such giving there is about as much happiness as 
in being robbed on the highway. 

" Or such a man gives lavishly for display, to 
hear the music of his name upon the tongues 
of men, and with about the same high grade 
of happiness with which he pays his advertising 
bills. 

" Still, there is much that a rich man may do 



yS ADDRESSES. 

with his money beyond the supply of his own 
wants, of a character to react in happiness ; and 
I believe that I should have sought this relief, 
but for an accident, the great fire which you 
doubtless remember, which suddenly reduced 
me from wealth to the modest fortune I now 
possess. 

" I made no effort to recover my losses, but 
withdrew from active business, content with 
enough remaining to afford me reasonable com- 
fort and freedom from care, and then devoted 
myself to a new departure in the pursuit of hap- 
piness ; and the fact that my life, emerging from 
bondage at fifty, has reached a fuller, heartier 
happiness at sixty than it ever knew in youth 
or prime, may justify me in affecting to teach 
you something of what I call my philosophy. 

" Now you are starting out for the common 
goal; and I charge you if you seek happiness, 
and of a kind that never yet imperilled an im- 
mortal soul, lay up for yourself treasures in this 
world, — but not of the kind that moth and rust 
can corrupt or thieves steal. 

" Pray not for the gift of Midas. Remember the 
hungry fool reaching out for food and clutching 
a golden mockery, the starving wretch fleeing 
on golden footprints to the waters of Pactolus 
to wash away the curse of his magic touch. 

" He is pitifully poor, though he count millions, 
who cannot buy for his heart the throb of human 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 79 

sympathy, or purchase for his age the solace of 
respect. To the world he may seem to be the 
favorite of fortune: but hear what old Izaak 
Walton says: 

" * As God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep 
those riches hang often so heavily at the rich man's 
girdle that they dog him with weary days and restless 
nights, even when others sleep quietly. 

" ' We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness ; 
few consider him to be like the silkworm, that when she 
seems to play, is at the very same time spinning her 
own bowels and consuming herself.' 

" Jonesby is called rich because he has three mil- 
lions invested in railroads, but he has also invested 
himself 'in railroads. 

" He belongs to stockholders who are dividing 
him up in dividends. 

" Our friend Smithsby has a million or two 
snugly secured, and devotes his penurious mind 
to keeping down his expenses. Poor old soul ! He 
is in love with his ungrateful gold, that will not 
serve him, but works only for its own increase. 
He is but the ill-fed watch-dog of his own treasury, 
and he lives for a dog's reward. 

" But to resume the strain of advice : I hope 
that you will not be led by the course of others 
to think too highly of money for its own sake, 
or for the pleasures and benefits which it may 
seem to confer. 



80 ADDRESSES. 

"As society is constituted, every man is expected 
to be self-supporting, and should seek to gain the 
means of a comfortable life, — not necessarily the 
means to live without labor, — for to most men 
capable of what I call intelligent happiness, work 
of some sort is desirable, — but to escape the 
necessity of constant and distasteful drudgery. 

" This is perhaps the first rational step towards 
happiness, since of course to the average man of 
our society the contentment of insensate poverty 
or mere careless vagabondage is impossible ; but 
the time and thought given to the accumulation 
of a surplus are generally misspent. 

" The man of moderate means and the philoso- 
phy to find them sufficient for his reasonable 
uses, is richer than a Vanderbilt with all his mil- 
lions and his greed for more. 

" Every person has a certain natural range of 
wants. His appetite demands a certain kind and 
quantity of food ; his mind requires to be nourished 
according to its quality and training ; his social 
nature must have its congenial atmosphere, and 
his impulses their opportunity for action ; and so 
it seems to me that just as there is a proper house 
for every man, according to his tastes, the size of 
his family, and the number of his welcome guests, 
so there is a fortune appropriate for every man ; 
and by this I mean that fortune which he can use 
with advantage to himself and those dependent 
upon him in supplying their proper wants, in 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 8 1 

promoting rational pleasures, and in judicious 
charities, — in a word, just so much as he can enjoy 
in the use and not in the mere possession. 

" All beyond this, that is gained at the expense 
of time and energy, costs too much; for a man's 
time is all there is of him in this world, and he 
can ill afford to spend himself for the mere 
possession of anything he does not need. 

" It is with money as with life : he alone holds 
it worthily who can upon occasion regard it with 
indifference. 

" Of course mere riches may gain the possessor 
the envy and homage of a certain class ; but the 
rich man, unless he be a simple fellow rich by 
accident, instead of deriving pleasure from this 
source, is humiliated by the thought that the same 
tribute would follow his money into the hands of 
any fool. 

" Why, sometimes, when I had the million of 
which I told you, a young man would rise and 
press me to take his seat in a car when a feeble 
woman was standing before him. 

" Can you imagine that I found anything but 
pain and shame in such a deference as that? 

" And often during that period I received in- 
vitations from the fastidious De Browns or the 
exclusive Smythes, telling me in conventional 
phrase, leaving a little to be understood, that they 
desired the presence of a millionaire in my per- 
son at a dinner or musical reception ; and of course 



%2 ADDRESSES. 

I regarded the compliment as something less than 
that they paid the hired musicians, since they 
were bidden for their skill and accomplishments, 
and I for nothing meritorious." 

My uncle paused here, and thinking the occa- 
sion opportune to turn him to a lighter strain, I 
pushed the decanter toward him, and said : — 

" I confess that you have about persuaded me 
not to amass many millions more than I suppose 
I need, and not to work immoderately in getting 
the little fortune that shall fit me, as you put 
it ; but what more shall I do — or not do — to be 
happy? 

" You say that in your unhappy days of wealth 
you were offered the advantages of fashionable 
society. Now suppose that this society, over- 
looking my philosophical poverty, should open 
its doors to me: shall I enter?" 

" Ah ! " said my uncle, " I perceive that you 
have heard enough of the evils of money-getting ; 
but before we quit the subject, let us sum it up 
after the fashion of old Time himself — don't you 
remember the lines : — 

" ' Quoth I, " Here 's Christmas come again, 

And I no farthing richer ! " 
Time answered, " Ah ! the old, old strain ! 

I prithee pass the pitcher ; 
Why measure all your good in gold ? 

No rope of sand is weaker ; 
'T is hard to get, — 't is hard to hold ; 

Come, lad, fill up your beaker \ nrn 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 83 

And after suiting the action to the quoted 
word, my uncle looked at me with a quizzical 
smile, and said : — 

"As to fashionable society — well, perhaps you 
may as well try it, just for the experience. 

" Most men like meat better after trying to eat 
feathers. But just examine yourself first ; or, if 
you 're not good at diagnosis, get some old fellow 
like me to do it for you, — and find out what 
manner of man you are for such experiments ; and 
if you find that your pulse is steady at something 
under seventy ; that your vanity is broken to bit 
and rein ; that your heart is domestic enough to 
decline excursion tickets from strangers ; and, in 
short, that you have common sense enough to 
avoid making a fool of yourself under strong 
temptations, then, I would say to you, go into 
fashionable society. Society, in its broad sense, 
is the common school of the race, fashionable 
society the dancing-school. 

" Perhaps you may as well learn to waltz, if 
you are sure you can do so without forgetting 
how to walk. 

" In this school you will be taught that policy 
is the best honesty ; but don't stake your whole 
future on that proposition until you have tested 
it ; and you will learn that fat brains and brutish 
instincts are excusable defects in a man who has 
distinguished himself by inheriting a fortune; 
but don't act upon that doctrine in choosing 
friends or models. 



84 ADDRESSES. 

" And you may sometimes find a firefly passing 
for a meteor, but don't conclude at once that 
every glowworm is a star. 

" You will perhaps see a man six feet long and 
bearded, with his brilliant intellect focused upon 
his scarf, his keen introspection arrested by his 
under-clothing ; or notice the antics of some vet- 
eran beau, who, as Lord Chesterfield once said of 
himself, has been dead for years, but does not 
wish it to be known ; or you may observe how 
cleverly one woman stabs a dozen with a new 
dress ; or watch a cage of pretty parrots, and see 
them flutter in consternation when some wilful 
bird that will not learn the parrot phrases spreads 
her impatient wings and sounds the note of the 
free forest; but such observations will hardly 
afford you more than amusement. 

" Still, you will find people intent upon the same 
purpose as yourself, — the attainment of happi- 
ness, — and if you wear your eyes open, you may 
profit by their errors. 

" You will see especially the folly of pretense. 

" Let me illustrate this by a woman's case, — 
not that women are more dishonest than men, but 
because the conditions of their life and social 
status expose them to more insidious temptations, 
and render more conspicuous the consequences of 
this error. 

" She craves admiration — in itself a legitimate 
element of happiness. 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 85 

" She finds that homage is paid to beauty, and 
so she attempts by fraud to simulate a beauty she 
has not. She buys with false coin, and she can- 
not wholly enjoy her purchase : she fears detec- 
tion, and this fear stimulates her to an anxious 
effort that precludes happiness." 

Here I interrupted my uncle, — for I could not 
tamely listen to such a criticism of the better sex, 
— and said : — 

" Do you really mean to say that in such things 
women are dishonest, and by these trifling decep- 
tions they work out their own unhappiness ? Is 
not beauty admirable and the love of admiration 
seemly in a woman?" 

"Ah ! " replied my uncle, "I see that your gal- 
lantry is challenged, and you must champion your 
fair divinities ; but you take me too seriously. 

" I do not mean that the lady who gilds her 
tresses of copper and passes them for gold com- 
mits a crime, or that she will inevitably suffer the 
pangs of remorse for such an act ; but I say the 
motive is dishonest, and the end will be disap- 
pointment. 

" In the social market where she buys there is 
no law against such things, and moreover she is 
encouraged and assured by the frequency and 
apparent success of similar enterprises on every 
side. 

" By some undiscussable law of her nature, such 
a woman must be noticed by men, or she perishes ; 



86 ADDRESSES. 

and if she be not wholly blind, she readily per- 
ceives that the average man sees quicker with his 
eye than with his mind, and is not fastidious in 
the indulgence of his senses. 

" He languidly admits the excellence of some 
plain woman with working brain and. sterling 
character, but devotes himself to some girl with 
shaded eyes and tinted cheeks. 

" You may say that he invites the fraud, and 
deserves to be deceived. True ; if we assume 
that he is deceived we shall waste no sympathy 
on him. 

"But the mischief is not to him — at least not 
directly. The woman practises her art, not with 
the almost laudable design to deceive men who 
court deception, but for the purpose of attracting 
admiration by false pretenses ; and almost before 
she realizes her ephemeral success she feels some 
pang that robs her of the coveted satisfaction. 
She has given herself to a lie, and she must share 
its fate. She has given it currency, and the world 
honors it with a smile that implies no censure; 
but she is not content, for she cannot be sure 
that the smile is not a cheat too ; or perhaps she 
is painfully shocked at some more glaring fraud 
which under her very eyes has achieved a more 
conspicuous success. 

" But by all means, my boy, go into fashionable 
society. 

" Voltaire says that illusion is the first of all 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 8? 

pleasures ; and here you may find the beginning 
of happiness. 

" However, you need not believe implicitly in all 
appearances. 

" For example, Mrs. Smithby, who brought from 
the finishing school the paper pattern of an edu- 
cation, and loves art well enough to enjoy a plate 
of her favorite fruit in a chromo, meets Mrs. 
Jonesby, who is really a model housekeeper, some- 
what debilitated by the epidemic aestheticism in 
her system. 

"With a gentle sorrow just tinged by the bit- 
terness of unforgiving censure, Mrs. Smithby 
deplores the meretricious tendency of modern 
art; while Mrs. Jonesby, who has lately knelt 
at the feet of an apostle in hair and knee- 
breeches, mourns over the fearful responsibility 
of a trustee for beauty, and laments the degrada- 
tion of a race that will not dress in symphonies. 

" But, my boy, don't let such evidence of grief 
sadden your young life. Time will assuage such 
sorrows, and these fair sufferers will yet find 
something to live for, — perhaps art, or church, 
or children, but probably fashionable society. 

" For such stricken ones, as for the soft-eyed 
young widow who begins to take notice, you 
may safely trust to a relenting fate, for I believe 
that even Fate might be cajoled by one of these, 
who sigh with such discretion and weep so 
apropos." 



88 ADDRESSES. 

"Really," exclaimed I, with some heat, "do 
you mean to condemn these modish little fic- 
tions? Is it not better for such people to talk 
up than down? Would you have a lady for 
honesty's sake parade her love of cabbages in 
a society that is lily-mad ? " 

"Well," said he, "I think that in the pur- 
suit of happiness she will gain more by eating 
cabbages with a relish than by taking lilies as a 
prescription. 

" But I repeat, probably society of this kind 
won't hurt you, and may teach you lessons worth 
learning. 

"You are, I perceive, already conscious of 
women in the world ; and so, having nodded to 
your destiny, you may as well offer your arm and 
go the way of all men, even though it lead you 
into that carnival of women we call the circle 
of fashion. 

" What a masquerade it seems to an old man in 
the gallery ! And yet I confess to you that when 
I was a boy of your age and down among the 
maskers I thought it all real life, and took the 
fellow in armor for a knight, and the creature 
with a wand for a true queen of fairies ; and you 
may do the same, and perhaps be none the worse 
for it, if you don't die young ; for you will find 
food for thought, and may be wise enough to stop 
sometimes to think. 

" But if you are led to wonder whether devo- 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 89 

tion to such a life brings true happiness, mark its 
devotees. 

" Take, for instance, a young girl, the unfortu- 
nate child of some worldly, ambitious woman, who 
has reached the position of a leader in society. 

"The daughter, of course, is destined to the 
same life, and must come to it prepared. Follow 
her through the course of artificial training begun 
in the nursery and continued in the fashionable 
boarding-school. 

" Observe how carefully the natural impulses of 
youth are warped into the cool artfulness of the 
tutored miss; how readily the development of 
her understanding is postponed to the training 
of her voice and step ; how wickedly the culture 
of her heart is sacrificed to the acquisition of 
stated accomplishments and selected affectations, 
until, out of the grand possibilities of girlhood, 
she comes to society distorted and made over, 
robbed of the strength and sweetness that God 
gave her for her woman's portion, and equipped 
instead with the ready artifice, the social maxims, 
the ravenous vanity, and mercenary purpose of 
the fashionable debutante. 

" If we trace her further, we shall see how faith- 
fully she worships at the shrine of fashion, and 
how blindly she follows the decrees of that wanton 
goddess in dress, habits, sentiment, and even re- 
ligion; for that is often scarce deeper than her 
complexion, and may be shaded as easily to suit 
the mode. 



90 ADDRESSES. 

" Her beauty, grace, accomplishments, and po- 
sition, — these are her capital for speculation, and 
she places it in the social mart with all the 
shrewdness of a practical financier; and after a 
few seasons of physical, mental, and spiritual dis- 
sipation, she bestows on some deluded man the 
empty chrysalis of her affections which they 
agree to call a heart, and gives herself to slow 
starvation over the garnished mess of pottage for 
which she has bartered her birthright of true 
womanhood. 

" And, my boy, she will smile like a seraph to 
the end ; but don't imagine that the smile beto- 
kens happiness. It is said that in Sardinia grows 
a poisonous plant which, if eaten by man, con- 
vulses the features into a horrible expression of 
mirth, and the tortured victim slowly dies with 
the sardonic smile upon his face. And so, I 
fancy, we sometimes read in the set smile of fash- 
ion the story of a poisoned and wasting life. 

" But, you will say, there must be some scope 
for happiness in such a life, or men and women 
would not continue in it. That does not follow. 
There are errors as old as mankind and apparent 
as the sun, which will always continue to ensnare 
the majority. 

" Anger, hatred, and malice are patent ways to 
vain regret, and yet the multitude will not forsake 
them. 

" Of course, I am not condemning the social life 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 9 1 

of our people, so far as it fosters a natural sympa- 
thy and teaches the amenities of life, for to that 
extent it is beneficent; but I am warning you 
against any serious devotion to that phase of so- 
ciety which is due to idleness, vanity, and surplus 
wealth, and in which too often a clever affectation 
passes for culture. 

" It is a game of counterfeits, and the winnings 
are mainly spurious. In business life a man who 
gains credit by false representations is punished 
as a swindler. In society a man who gets posi- 
tion by false pretenses is often justified by suc- 
cess ; but then, if society were conducted upon 
business principles, it would become a court of 
bankruptcy." 

Here I again interrupted my uncle, and in- 
quired, with some asperity, perhaps, why he had 
chosen so often to illustrate the foibles of society 
by feminine examples. 

" Because," said he, " in that direction the evil 
is the more apparent and mischievous. Did any 
man ever frame his picture of earthly happiness 
without a woman's face in it? Is there anything 
in life so dear to man as the undeflled purity of 
woman, or so lovely as her natural grace and 
beauty? 

" The things that degrade a man's ideals im- 
poverish the man, and hence I say that these 
social errors are the concern of man, and fair 
targets for his satire. 



92 ADDRESSES. 

" The sins of men are of the grosser sort, and 
palpable enough for the grasp of law ; but those 
of women come in such questionable shapes that 
we hesitate to give them name and character. 

" Suppose it were possible that a fashionable 
lady, though somewhat dim in her theology, 
should have a clear conception of a stylish re- 
ligion. She would be concerned not so much 
about what she worshipped as what she wor- 
shipped in, and would probably limit her creed 
to the belief in a personal clergyman. 

" Of course in view of your threatening de- 
meanor I don't suggest that there is really such 
a case to be found; but if there were, society 
would doubtless let it pass for piety, and hardly 
hint at profanation. 

" Therefore because of the tendencies which ap- 
pear in fashionable society — the society that 
asserts itself and affects to set up standards other 
than worth and true culture — I say to you, en- 
joy it as you would a play. Go where you 
please for study or recreation, but don't get 
stage-struck. Take the stimulant if you need, 
but beware of the chronic thirst, or you are 
lost." 

Then I reminded my uncle that he had only 
told of the things which in his life of wealth he 
had found unproductive of happiness ; and that I 
should be glad to know by what steps he had 
escaped from the error of his ways and reached 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 93 

the position of a consciously happy man ; and he 
replied : — 

"In the first place, let me disclaim perfect 
felicity: no sane or sober man possesses it. I 
am simply contented, and I actively enjoy life; 
and as to the process — why, you have much of 
it already by inference, and the rest I can give 
you in few words. 

" At fifty I realized that I had sadly neglected 
my power of rational enjoyment, and, upon the 
theory that one is never too old to learn, I began 
to educate myself for what you may perhaps call 
a selfish life. True, it is selfish ; but so are many 
of our best deeds. Indeed, I have sometimes 
thought there is much truth in La Rochefoucauld's 
maxim that ' Our virtues are frequently but 
vices ; ' and perhaps the converse is sometimes 
true. At all events, we may admit that for men 
who lack the learning and genius to confer 
direct benefits upon mankind, the highest form of 
selfishness, which consists in the development of 
the best self, is a beneficent virtue. 

" My method was simple and direct. For ex- 
ample, a comet appeared in the heavens, and I 
conceived the idea that a man of general intel- 
ligence and leisure for study might as well know 
something about comets. So I bought an as- 
tronomy and renewed my youthful studies, and, 
I am proud to say, became interested, and learned 
to find new pleasures in the stars that I had 



94 ADDRESSES. 

gazed* upon for half a century. I invited artists 
to my house and got them to talk to me of art 
and teach me something of their methods, not 
that I might make pretense of art-culture, but 
simply to enhance to me the value of my crude 
love for form and color ; and I learned to enjoy 
the pictures on my walls and in the galleries not 
merely by vague impression, but, measurably, 
for their merits and their evidence of artistic skill. 
" I was unwilling that the stream of literature 
should flow through all the world and not con- 
tribute to my cup of life, and so I have learned 
to find pleasure in thoughts which I had long put 
aside as unworthy of a mind dedicated to com- 
merce ; and I have found friends in men whom 
formerly I had regarded as useless members of 
society, — some of them queer fellows, you would 
say, but each with a fund of knowledge, a vein of 
delicious humor, or a store of rare conceits, that 
amply repays me for the trouble of discovery. I 
have even reached that high degree of philosophy 
which enabled me to go a-fishing without feel- 
ing that I thereby lost time or dignity. And 
then to such griefs as came to me, I gave no wel- 
come, but sought to be rid of them as quickly as 
possible, attacking them with all fair weapons, 
just as I would fight a headache with fresh air or a 
dose of medicine. Except the fear of death there 
is nothing in life so unphilosophical as mourn- 
ing forced by a sense of duty or prolonged by a 



THE CONFESSIONS OF A MILLIONAIRE. 95 

social custom. In a word, after a life devoted to 
the accumulation of a fortune and to the con- 
ventional forms of recreation, I found that the 
best pleasures and the worthiest satisfaction pos- 
sible to my nature were of a kind that money 
could not buy, or even promote, except so far 
as it furnished relief from drudgery and sordid 
cares ; and my chief regret as I draw near the 
end of life is, that I have spent its best years in 
the worship of false gods. 

" But I have wearied you with my rambling 
monologue. Let me epitomize part of our table 
talk to-night in a little fable. 

" A man lived in a beautiful garden, but he 
knew not of the fruit and flowers, for all the day 
long he digged in the earth for gold, and the 
bee and the bird and the passer-by gathered the 
riches of the garden; and when his day was done 
he had digged a pit deep enough for a grave and 
the gold he had found was enough to bury him." 

Here my Aunt Jane entered the room to see if 
my uncle was smoking more than one cigar after 
his dinner, and during the explanation which en- 
sued I withdrew, musing over my uncle's queer 
fancies and repeating to myself the old familiar 
lines, — 

u O happiness, how far we flee 
Thine own sweet paths in search of thee ! " 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 

Read before the Chicago Literary Club on 
January 31, 1887. 

NO character in history or fiction has been so 
universally execrated as the devil. He is 
nearly as old as man, and throughout his long 
career he has been regarded by most of our race 
as vastly their inferior in point of morality. Only 
the most humbly pious of men — those who have 
found ecstasy in magnifying their worm-hood and 
sought perfection by exaggerating their deformi- 
ties — have admitted his superiority ; and even 
these have assumed that in this very self-abase- 
ment was a virtue which must ultimately put him 
beneath their feet. Wherever man has dwelt, the 
devil has been known and feared. We believe 
there is no race of people known to history which 
has not acknowledged him in some shape or guise, 
either as a single spirit or a band of spirits, an 
emanation from air or earth or water, a wind, a 
river, an animal, a bird, a man-like personality or 
an indescribable monster, but always as a super- 
natural being or power intent upon evil, and the 
inveterate foe of man. How long, or in what 
various forms, he was known during that prehis- 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 97 

toric period whose countless ages we scarcely 
estimate, is of course conjectural ; but doubtless at 
whatever time after creation, or at whatever stage 
of evolution, man first learned to distinguish good 
and evil and to speculate upon the sources of things 
deemed good or evil, some malevolent being was 
imagined as the instigator of sin and the author 
of all calamities, and by some name unknown to 
us became the devil of that age and people. 

It is not, however, the purpose of this paper to 
trace the devil-idea through its earliest history; 
and so with this brief allusion to its antiquity we 
pass at once to the consideration of its latest per- 
sonification in our devil, — the personal, scrip- 
tural devil of Christendom, — and propose to 
sketch his rise and fall. 

If in doing so we shall seem to lack that spirit 
of reverential awe with which the mention of his 
name appears to inspire some persons, and shall 
thereby bring a shiver of apprehension to any of 
our hearers, it may reassure them to remember 
that to him the abuse of mortals is the sweetest 
flattery. If therefore we should brin;* against 
him the most serious charges of immorality and 
openly impugn his motives, we should only grat- 
ify his vitiated pride without increasing his hostil- 
ity ; but lest we seem thereby to be doing him a 
willing kindness, it may be well to exorcise him 
at once and put him out of hearing, — which is 
easily done. 

7 



98 ADDRESSES. 

Luther, who was far too intimate with him, — a 
great deal more so than any modern reformer 
professes to be, — discovered that he could not 
withstand humor. 

Whenever in his controversies with the devil 
he found argument and Scripture unavailing, he 
would say : " Devil, if, as you say, Christ's blood, 
which was shed for my sins, be not sufficient to 
insure my salvation, can't you pray for me your- 
self, Devil?" and this suggestion never failed to 
terminate the interview. 

We do not pretend to the sparkling humor of 
Luther ; but we feel assured that the little pleas- 
antries which may escape us will be equally effica- 
cious to disgust the devil and drive him hence. 

Leaving out of consideration all other devils 
who play their parts in the many strange re- 
ligions of the world, and confining ourselves for 
the present to that one who is supposed to devote 
himself especially to the torture of Christians, let 
us inquire, with all the air of making a new 
acquaintance, who is he? One will answer, he is 
Satan, the rebellious and fallen angel, the foe of 
God and man, who has been since the world 
began. Another will say, he is the last edition of 
a myth which in their ancient history the Jews 
called Satan ; and still another, he is Ahriman of 
the old Persians, re-christened by the Jews and 
re-habited by the Christian fathers. Let it suf- 
fice our purpose, however, that he is a being, 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 99 

real or mythical, with a history, an influence, and 
a destiny which challenge our interest. 

If we attempt to depict him by reference to 
human testimony, we shall present but a vague 
and confused image. He has been credited with 
the power of a god and the pettiness of a babe, 
the wisdom of a sage and the folly of a fool, the 
cruelty of a pestilence and the malice of a slan- 
derer. In person he has been represented as an 
Apollo and as a monster. He has been assigned 
the horns and hoofs of a goat, the tail of an ape, 
the tongue of a serpent, the wings of a bat, and 
every complexion possible to flesh or ghost. By 
comparison the sea-serpent is a type of constancy 
in form, the chameleon a standard of color, and the 
moods of a woman are unvarying as the seasons. 
But on one point all writers agree. He is old, 
crafty, and energetic "to a fault," in extending 
his acquaintance. 

His early history is involved in obscurity. The 
garden of Eden, the grave of Adam, the landing- 
place of the ark, — each of these spots has been 
located with amazing accuracy in a dozen places, 
but the birthplace of the devil is still unknown ; 
nor is the date of his birth clearly proven. 

The common belief, which regards him as 
identical with the Satan of the Old Testament, is 
content to find him ready-made in the beginning 
— the very beginning, before the heavens and 
the earth — and connects him with the human 



100 ADDRESSES. 

race in its infancy by supposing that in the 
form of a serpent he introduced sin into Eden ; 
but as to where he acquired sin — whether he in- 
vented it or it produced him — there is scarcely a 
theory held with confidence. Such questions are 
by common consent relegated to the domain of 
the too abstruse. 

If, however, we turn to the Old Testament we 
shall find little to justify this belief. The name 
" Satan " signified in the Hebrew an " adversary" 
or an " accuser ; " and this is the sense in which 
we find it used in the old Scriptures. 

The first mention of Satan occurs in the First 
Book of Chronicles, where it is written that " Satan 
stood up against Israel and provoked David to 
number Israel." Read this, however, in connec- 
tion with the first verse of the 24th chapter of 
Second Samuel, — " And again the anger of the 
Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved 
David against them to say, Go, number Israel and 
Judah," — and it will appear that if it was Satan 
who provoked the act it was in furtherance of the 
Lord's purpose. 

In the first chapter of Job we read : — 

"6. Now there was a day when the sons of God 
came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan 
came also among them. 

" 7. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest 
thou ? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From 



THE RISE AXD FALL OF THE DEVIL. 10 1 

going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and 
down in it. 

u 8. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou con- 
sidered my sen-ant Job, that there is none like him in 
the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that fear- 
eth God. and escheweth evil? 

'•9. Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth 
Job fear God for nought ? 

" 10. Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and 
about his house, and about ail that he hath on every 
side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and 
his substance is increased in the land. 

"11. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that 
he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. 

■ 12. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that 
he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not 
forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence 
of the Lord." 

Here we have Satan introduced as one of — or 
among — the sons of God. He comes from going 
to and fro in the earth, not apparently on any 
evil mission, but as a member of the spirit band 
sent forth to patrol the earth. 

This idea is not altogether fanciful. It is sup- 
ported by a vision, as well authenticated as the 
words we have quoted, of which we may read in 
the first chapter of Zechariah : — 

" S. I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a 
red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that 
were in the bottom : and behind him were there red 
horses, speckled, and white. 



102 ADDRESSES. 

"9. Then said I, my lord, what are these? And 
the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew 
thee what these be. 

" 10. And the man that stood among the myrtle trees 
answered and said, These are they whom the Lord hath 
sent to walk to and fro through the earth. 

" n. And they answered the angel of the Lord that 
stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked 
to and fro through the earth, and, behold, all the earth 
sitteth still, and is at rest." 

In the one hundred and ninth Psalm we find 
the passage : — 

"Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan 
stand at his right hand." 

And in the third chapter of Zechariah we read : 

" 1. And he shewed me Joshua the high priest stand- 
ing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at 
his right hand to resist him. 

" 2. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke 
thee, O Satan ; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusa- 
lem rebuke thee : is not this a brand plucked out of 
the fire?" 

These, we believe, are the only passages in 
which "Satan" is used as a proper name in the 
Old Testament; and we have quoted them at 
length, as they furnish the only scriptural basis 
for the belief in Satan as a personal being prior 
to the Christian era, or for the later belief that he 
was identical with the devil of our theology. 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 103 

It is apparent, however, that the characteristics 
here given to Satan, and his relation to the divine 
government, as a sort of prosecuting attorney in 
the Court of Heaven, are widely different from 
those of his successor. It is probable, however, 
that we have in this Satan the first conception of 
that personified evil principle which under vari- 
ous modifications has survived to the present day 
in the devil-myth of our theology ; and upon this 
supposition we examine the record further to as- 
certain, if possible, whether the existence and 
office of Satan may reasonably be predicated upon 
the authority of divine revelation, — such author- 
ity as the Church assumes for the Mosaic account 
of the creation. 

In the first place, we observe that none of the 
passages quoted are found in the Pentateuch, — 
the so-called Books of Moses, which are now 
commonly believed by critics to have been com- 
posed from four to eight hundred years after the 
time of Moses, and reduced to their present form 
in the reign of Josiah, or about six centuries 
before Christ. This omission of Satan in the 
books of the law and the story of creation is 
presumptive evidence of the fact that he was not 
known to Moses either by divine revelation or by 
human tradition ; whether we assume that the 
books attributed to him were written by him or 
constructed substantially out of material fur- 
nished by him; and a little study of the chro- 



104 ADDRESSES. 

nology of the books in which Satan is mentioned 
will serve to strengthen this conclusion, and fix, 
approximately, the date of his appearance in the 
Jewish history. 

Thus we shall find that Zechariah was not 
written until the time of the Captivity, or later ; 
that the First Book of Chronicles was written, very 
probably, though not certainly, about the same 
date ; and that the one hundred and ninth Psalm 
belongs to a still later period, after the return 
from the Captivity ; while the Book of Job, con- 
cerning the authorship and date of which com- 
paratively little is known, is assigned by modern 
critics to a later period than the Pentateuch. 

We find, therefore, that all of these books, with 
the possible exception of Job, were written after 
the beginning of the Captivity, — by which we 
mean, of course, the long, or seventy years', cap- 
tivity in Babylon ; and that Job, if older, may 
have been written after the earlier and minor 
captivities of the Jews, and, like the others, with a 
knowledge of the Persian traditions. Indeed, it 
is said to have been the universal belief of the 
Jewish and Christian Church till the fourth cen- 
tury that the Old Testament was a compilation 
made and published by the prophet Ezra, or 
Esdras, some time after the return of the Israel- 
ites from the Babylonish Captivity. And so we 
are led to the conclusion that the Satan-myth, 
like certain fables in Genesis, was derived through 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 105 

the Persians, nearly a thousand years after the 
time of Moses, from sources not related to the 
God of Christian theology. 

Thus we find in Rawlinson's " Ancient Mon- 
archies " a tradition of the manner and order of 
creation, very similar to the account in Genesis, 
which was held by the early Chaldeans probably 
more than twenty-three centuries before Christ, 
and nearly two thousand years before the earli- 
est date now given by critics for the writing of 
Genesis, and from which Niebuhr says the 
Mosaic account was clearly drawn. So we find 
current at the same time the story of the flood 
and the ark, the building of the tower, and the 
confusion of tongues. 

In Media, as shown by the earlier portions of 
the Zendavesta, the doctrine of evil spirits, or 
" devas," was held long before the time of Moses. 
These " devas " were represented as " numerous, 
artful, malicious, inventors of spells, and deceivers 
and injurers of mankind ; " though as yet no ac- 
count was given of their creation or of the origin 
of their wickedness, nor was any single superior 
intelligence or spirit of evil placed at their head. 
Later, however, in the dualism of the Zoroastrian 
system, we find Ahura-mazda, Ormuzd, or Ormazd, 
the Prince of Light, and Angro-mainyus, or 
Ahriman, the Prince of Darkness, — leaders of 
the opposing forces of good and evil. Ahriman 
created a band of evil spirits called devs, the 



106 ADDRESSES. 

most powerful of which was an immense two-footed 
serpent. After the creation of man, Ahriman, as 
a serpent, tempted him to eat forbidden fruit, 
and sin thereby entered the world. A redeemer 
was to be born, of a virgin, who would subdue 
the devs, raise the dead, and hold a final judg- 
ment. Ahriman and his devs would be plunged 
into a lake of fire for purification, and ultimately- 
pardoned. Here we have the story of the temp- 
tation in Eden current among the Medes at a 
date which critics place from eight to twelve centu- 
ries before Christ and long before the Babylonish 
Captivity or the writing of Genesis ; and here too 
we find at least a plausible explanation of the 
statement in Genesis that the tempter was a 
serpent — no mention being made of Satan — 
and of the puzzling curse which was put upon 
him. The serpent was cursed above all cattle 
and above every beast of the field, and doomed to 
crawl thereafter, as if he had theretofore known 
another manner of locomotion; which may be 
explained by the Median tradition that the 
tempter appeared as a serpent having feet. 

In like manner we find in one of the passion- 
plays of India, as described by Conway in his 
" Demonology," Harischandra, the good and just 
man, sorely tried and tempted by Viswamitra, 
the powerful and crafty one, who acted under 
authority of Indra; or the drama of Job, con- 
structed from legends of great antiquity, which, 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 107 

if not older than the Book of Job, may at least be 
assumed to have a different origin. 

By this reference to the traditions of other 
peoples outside of the Jewish history, by com- 
parison of the dates assigned, and equally by 
consideration of the internal evidence of the 
Scriptures, it seems that we may safely conclude 
that the Satan-idea was borrowed by the Old 
Testament writers from foreign traditions; and 
conceding this as the origin of the Christian 
belief in the Prince of Darkness, we may confi- 
dently say with Conway that " the devil was 
theologically born in Persia about the year 900 
B. C.," although we should incline to fix the date 
one or two centuries later. 

But whatever doubt may exist concerning the 
appearance of Satan in the Old Testament, it is 
certain that in the beginning of the Christian era 
his reputation had somewhat changed, and he 
came to be regarded by the Jews as a being 
possessed of the special powers and propensities 
thereafter assigned to the devil. He is variously 
mentioned in the New Testament as " Satan," as 
an " old serpent," " the Prince of this World," 
"Beelzebub," "the Prince of Darkness," "the 
wicked one," and by many other titles. He 
was recognized as the powerful, wily, and mali- 
cious enemy of God and man. He no longer 
figured as the prosecutor in the heavenly court, 
an agency in the divine plan of government, but 



108 ADDRESSES. 

had become the irreclaimable rebel, bent on 
anarchy ; and if the narratives of the New Testa- 
ment are to be literally, or even substantially, 
credited, the devil of that time was a real person, 
or at least had the power of assuming the form 
and speech of man, and had the singular habit of 
entering into and taking possession of man and 
beast, which he accomplished not in his own 
person, but by means of imps, demons, or deputy- 
devils of diminutive size. 

It is written that he tempted Jesus with words 
and sophistries ; that he took him to a mountain- 
top and to a pinnacle of the Temple ; and that 
he was addressed by Jesus, — the whole narrative 
giving to each the same distinct personality. 
And even the imps or sub-devils were appar- 
ently personal beings, as may be concluded 
from various narratives concerning them. 

That Jesus himself believed in the personal 
existence of a devil, or devils, is not clear. The 
record of his words and works was not written 
by him, nor (with the possible exception of the 
Fourth Gospel) by one who heard or saw him. 

Greg, in his " Creed of Christendom," after a 
careful review of the evidence and the arguments 
of modern critics, reaches the conclusion that the 
first three Gospels " are compilations from a vari- 
ety of fragmentary narratives and reports of dis- 
courses and conversations, oral or written, which 
were current in Palestine from thirty to forty 
years after the death of Jesus." 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 109 

Matthew Arnold concludes that " the record 
when we first get it had passed through at least 
half a century or more of oral tradition, and 
through more than one written account;" while 
many critics date it from the latter part of the 
second century, or later. Under these circum- 
stances we can appreciate the difficulty which 
Arnold experiences in criticising the Evangelists, 
of determining " what in their report of Jesus is 
Jesus, and what the reporters." 

We know, however, that the people to whom 
Jesus spoke were firm believers in the personality 
of the devil; and it is probable that he spoke 
according to their belief, not purporting out of 
divine knowledge either to confirm or refute it, 
for we find him referring to Mammon, recogniz- 
ing the power of their prophets to work miracles, 
and adopting the prevalent belief in the approach- 
ing end of the world. 

That the general teaching of the Jews on the 
subject of evil possession was similar to that of 
our forefathers of two centuries ago may be shown 
by reference to the miracles wrought upon de- 
moniacs. Thus, according to Matthew, Jesus met 
two men possessed with devils, and was about to 
relieve them, when the devils besought him that 
if they were to be cast out of the men, they 
might be suffered to enter into a herd of swine 
near by, which was permitted them ; and straight- 
way the swine ran into the sea and were drowned. 



IIO ADDRESSES. 

In the story according to Mark, there is but 
one demoniac, but the devils in possession are a 
legion, and the swine about two thousand in num- 
ber ; while in Luke the swine are said to be many, 
but not numbered. By these several narratives, 
notwithstanding their trifling discrepancies, we 
are led to important conclusions touching the 
devils of that day. They were small ; for other- 
wise, whether in fact a legion (about six thousand), 
or only sufficient in number to supply the herd of 
two thousand swine, they could hardly have dwelt 
in the spare room of a single man. They were 
gregarious, since they lived in such communi- 
ties. They spoke the language of the country, 
inasmuch as they conversed with men ; and they 
had decided preferences as to their environment, 
though as to their taste in selecting swine for a 
habitation, after trying man, there may be some 
question. 

Now in all these respects — in respect of their 
size, social instincts, lungs, vocal organs, and 
brains — these devils are like those of more 
modern date. Thus, a thousand years later, Saint 
Dominic punished a heretic by causing him to 
be invaded by a troop of fifteen thousand devils ; 
Zwinglius insisted that Luther was " tenanted by 
a whole troop of them ; " and we have read of a 
later instance in which a poor woman was pos- 
sessed of seventy-five thousand of these creatures, 
who by their united efforts so affected her daily 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. Ill 

walk and conversation that she was commonly said, 
with apparent reason, to be " full of the devil." 

In like manner it would be easy to prove that 
these devils have in all ages been excellent lin- 
guists. Cotton Mather, in his interesting ex- 
periments with the devils which possessed the 
Goodwin children, found that they understood 
English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; and al- 
though he noticed that one inferior language, 
probably some Indian dialect, seemed to confuse 
them, this was probably due to his bad accent. 

It is contended by critics that the word which 
is translated " devil " in the New Testament 
means " demon," and that the notion of evil 
possession had its origin in the demonology of 
that period and not in the Satan-myth of the 
early Scriptures. This is very probable ; but it 
is evident that upon the decadence of the demons 
their imps, or sub-demons, were adopted by their 
successor, the devil, and that he has been, through 
succeeding ages, accredited as their master and 
the responsible author of witchcraft. A witch 
who could not boast a solemn compact with him 
and show his private mark might succeed well 
enough to be burned, out of extra caution, but 
could hardly escape the suspicion of fraud. 

Having now considered the devil in his infancy, 
let us advance to the period of his prime ; and 
this brings us, with only a stop or two by the 
way, to the seventeenth century. 



112 ADDRESSES. 

During those dark and middle ages when igno- 
rance and superstition hung over the world like 
clouds that obscure the day, when a crafty priest- 
hood hoarded the meagre learning of the times, 
the devil was growing apace, but he was yet 
immature. He was as active, restless, and mis- 
chievous as a growing youth of his propensities 
could be, and from time to time he drew to him- 
self the serious attention of the world ; but he 
was not yet fully understood in his personal 
character or his relations to the divine govern- 
ment. Thus, on one occasion in the eleventh 
century, according to Matthew of Westminster, 
the devil having been outwitted by a certain 
priest, Palumbus, stretched his hand forth toward 
heaven and said, " O Almighty God, how long 
will you endure the wickedness of the priest 
Palumbus ?" And " the priest, Palumbus, when 
he heard the complaint which the devil addressed 
to the Lord respecting him, knew that the end of 
his days was at hand. On which account he am- 
putated all his limbs with a knife and so died in 
wonderful penitence, having confessed unheard of 
crimes to the Pope, in the presence of all the 
people." 

But about this time the devil began to assume 
that definite position in theology which he after- 
wards held. Draper says that Christianity in its 
earlier days knew little of the doctrine of the 
atonement ; that it was not admitted by the Alex- 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 13 

andrian theological school; that Tertullian did 
not mention it in his Apology ; that it was never 
prominently advanced by the fathers, and was 
not brought to its present importance until the 
time of Anselm ; that Philo Judaeus treated the 
story of the fall as symbolical, and Origen re- 
garded it as an allegory. If this is true, it was 
not until the eleventh century that the serpent 
in Paradise became an essential factor in the great 
problem of original sin and possible redemption. 
And not until a century or two later did the 
superstition with which the human mind was satu- 
rated manifest itself especially by the delusion 
known as witchcraft. From that time, the terror- 
ism exercised by the devil over the Christian 
world grew steadily more despotic. The common 
people in their daily life saw him in each un- 
toward happening, in sickness, accident, storm, 
famine, and each of the innumerable mishaps of 
their miserable lives. They knew themselves to 
be his predestined prey, and suspected each other 
of treacherous compact and diabolical service. 
If they sought refuge from their fears in the 
house of God, it was often but to experience still 
worse alarms ; for there the implacable fiend who 
pursued them through life was set before their 
excited imaginations as their merciless torturer 
through all eternity. 

This is perhaps the period to which Mr. Lowell 
refers in his late poem : — 

8 



114 ADDRESSES. 

" Oh, happy days, when men received 
From sire to son what all believed, 
And left the other world in bliss 
Contented with bedevilling this." 

In 1484 an edict was issued by Pope Innocent 
VIII. , saying: — 

" It is come to our ears that numbers of both 
sexes do not avoid to have intercourse with the 
infernal fiends, and that by their services they 
affect both man and beast, . . . that they blast the 
corn on the ground, the grapes of the vineyard, 
the fruits of the trees, the grass and herbs of the 
field." For these reasons the inquisitors were 
armed with the apostolic power and called upon 
to " convict, imprison, and punish," which they 
proceeded to do with great zeal and success. 

In England witchcraft was made the subject of 
express statute in 1541 and 1562; and in 1604, 
early in the reign of James I., it was made a cap- 
ital crime. In the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies the belief in witchcraft was almost universal. 
The Church of Rome continued to teach the 
reality of the crime; and in England, Scotland, 
and America, Puritanism carried forward the de- 
lusion almost to the pitch of frenzy. Not only 
did the devil by his imps possess and torment 
individuals and communities, but he personally 
appeared to many; while to all, substantially, he 
was as real a person as any robber or murderer 
convicted of crime. Luther saw him repeatedly. 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 115 

He became so accustomed to his diabolical vis- 
itor that, when he was awakened by some dis- 
turbance and found it was only the devil, he felt 
relieved, and went to sleep again at once. He 
engaged in long arguments with him, and, if the 
black spot on the wall in the Castle of Wartburg 
is to be believed, wasted much ink on him. He 
was therefore, of course, a firm believer in the 
devil and all his works, especially witchcraft, 
concerning which he says : " I would have no 
compassion on these witches. I would burn 
them all." 

Erasmus, and probably Calvin also, held the 
same belief; and in the next century we find its 
adherents among the greatest men of England. 
Sir Thomas Browne, who, curiously enough, had 
written an able work in exposition of popular 
fallacies, declared that all who doubted witch- 
craft were infidels and atheists. Coke was Attor- 
ney-General when the statute of James I. was 
enacted ; and Bacon seems to have at least coun- 
tenanced the views of the king on the subject. 
Sir Matthew Hale presided at the trials of thir- 
teen witches who were convicted, and had no 
doubt as to the existence of the crime. Shake- 
speare introduced witches in his plays, and fre- 
quently recognized the popular belief in the devil 
and his mode of action. Thus Hamlet says : — 

..." The spirit that I have seen 

May be the devil ; and the devil hath power 



Il6 ADDRESSES. 

To assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and perhaps 
Out of my weakness and my melancholy, 
(As he is very potent with such spirits) 
Abuses me to damn me." 

Wesley believed in witches even long after the 
delusion had been generally abandoned. As late 
as 1768 he lamented the prevailing scepticism, 
and insisted that to give up witchcraft was in 
effect to give up the Bible; and surely the 
preacher of forty thousand sermons must have 
been accustomed to weigh his words with care. 

In England the epidemic reached its height 
during the Commonwealth, and began to subside 
early in the Restoration, as the result apparently 
of no special action or revelation on the subject, 
but simply because the better minds became in- 
tolerant of the doctrine. Buckle says that in 
1660 the majority of educated men still believed 
in witchcraft, and in 1688 the majority rejected it. 
The last judicial execution in England for this 
crime took place about 17 16, and in 1736 the 
statute was repealed. In Scotland, however, the 
delusion prevailed to a later date, the trials and 
executions continuing until 1722; and Macaulay 
tells us that as late as 1773 the divines of the 
Associated Presbytery passed a resolution declar- 
ing their belief in witchcraft and deploring the 
general scepticism. The attitude of the Scotch 
clergy on this subject was most uncompromising. 
To them the devil was as real as man. They 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. II 7 

saw him repeatedly in the form of dog or cat, 
old crone, idiot, paralytic, or sceptic, and traced 
his agency in sickness, sudden death, and all 
misfortunes. 

Buckle, in the chapter entitled " An Examina- 
tion of the Scotch Intellect during the Seventeenth 
Century," tells us that " whenever the preacher 
mentioned Satan the consternation was so great 
that the church resounded with sighs and groans. 
. . . Not infrequently the people, benumbed 
and stupefied with awe, were rooted to their 
seats by the horrible fascination exercised over 
them, which compelled them to listen, though 
they are described as gasping for breath and with 
their hair standing on end." 

In the opinion of these divines, the devil owed 
much of his power to his great experience. Thus 
one declares : " The acquired knowledge of the 
devil is great, he being an advancing student, 
and still learning now above five thousand 
years." 

Another: "He knowes very well, partly by 
the quickness of his nature and partly by long 
experience, being now very near six thousand 
years old." 

Another : " He being compared with us hath 
many vantages ; as that he is more subtill by na- 
ture, being of great experience, and more ancient, 
being now almost sixe thousand yeeres old." 

In America the executions for witchcraft were 



Il8 ADDRESSES. 

confined to the latter half of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, and then, as in Europe, the delusion yielded 
to the gradual change in sentiment. During its 
prevalence some of the most distinguished men 
of New England were subject to it. Governor 
Winthrop presided at the trial of Margaret Jones 
in 1648, and signed the death-warrant. Cotton 
Mather, although vindicated by Mr. Poole against 
the charge of undue zeal in promoting the trials 
and executions, was a firm believer in witchcraft. 
In his " Memorable Providences," published in 
1 69 1, when the craze was at its height in New 
England, he writes, — 

" I am resolved after this never to use but just one 
grain of patience with any man that shall go to impose 
upon me a denial of devils or of witches. I shall count 
that man ignorant who shall suspect ; but I shall count 
him downright impudent if he asserts the non-exist- 
ence of things which we have had such palpable con- 
viction of." 

To illustrate the temper of the prosecutions 
in America, we cite a single case from the " Annals 
of Salem." On June 28, 1692, Rebecca Nurse 
was tried for witchcraft. " At first the jury 
could find no verdict against her. Even on their 
second return they had not found her guilty. 
When, however, they were in their places and 
she stood at the bar, they agreed on a verdict 
against her because she made no answer to some 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 19 

interrogations about an expression which she had 
uttered." And she was hung shortly afterward. 

It is well known that Milton complained that 
his wife would not talk enough, and that the 
taciturnity of wives has been the bane of matri- 
mony ever since ; but we believe this is the only 
case on record where a woman was actually hung 
for this fault, so characteristic of the sex. 

We have shown that this madness was not con- 
fined to the ignorant classes ; nor were its victims 
drawn wholly from the poor and lowly. The list 
embraces a bishop or two, clergymen, historical 
characters, as, for instance, Joan of Arc, men of 
all conditions, women, — especially the old and 
ugly, — children scarcely more than babes, and 
even certain animals, which were solemnly con- 
victed as special agents of the devil; and the 
number of those who suffered is almost incredible. 
It is estimated that in the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries more than two hundred thou- 
sand persons were executed, mostly burned, for 
this crime in Europe, — one half of the number 
being assigned to Germany and thirty thousand 
to England ; while Dr. Sprenger, in his " Life of 
Mohammed," estimates the number of such vic- 
tims during the Christian epoch at nine millions, 
though we have found no data which seem to 
justify such a computation. 

Of course many of the trials were farcical, the 
evidence being of the flimsiest sort, scarcely more 



120 ADDRESSES. 

satisfactory to the legal mind than the famous 
test employed by the official witch-finder, Matthew 
Hopkins. He wrapped the suspected persons 
in sheets, with the great toes and thumbs tied 
together, and dragged them through a pond or 
river. If they sunk, it was a sign that the bap- 
tismal element did not reject them, and they 
were cleared, — or if, as often happened, they 
were drowned in the process, their names were 
cleared, — but if they floated, they were deemed 
guilty and burned. 

In some of the trials, however, especially 
toward the close of the prosecutions, the testi- 
mony was such as would have been convincing in 
any judicial investigation of that time. When 
judge and jury firmly believed in the doctrine of 
evil possession, the ill repute or uncanny aspect 
of the accused made a prima facie case for the 
prosecution ; and when the poor tortured victim, 
crazed by superstitious terrors, was driven to 
confess the charge, and out of a distempered 
imagination to supply the usual background of 
meetings and compacts with the devil, conviction 
followed as a matter of course. 

There is nothing in the whole history of witch- 
craft which shows so clearly, to us of a later age, 
the utterness of the delusion and its stupefying 
effect upon the ordinary mind, as the frequency 
and sincerity of these confessions. And yet to 
the prosecutors they must have seemed the most 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 121 

conclusive evidence. So, too, the long and almost 
universal prevalence of the delusion must have 
given to them assurance of its vital truth. In 
short, there is no miracle of the Church, nor any 
tenet of her faith, which, tested by the common 
rules of evidence, was more fully and variously 
proven than this doctrine of evil possession. It 
was older by uncounted centuries than Chris- 
tianity, and had been held in substance by almost 
or quite every people known to history. It was 
taught by the Bible and by the Christian Fathers, 
believed to be sanctioned by the Lord, and under 
its sway millions had perished. It was attested 
by multitudes of living witnesses, and even by 
the dying confessions of its victims. Was ever 
supernatural thing so evidenced? And yet we 
find that within a single generation of men this 
madness which had held the world for centuries 
silently passed away. There was no violent or 
extraordinary revolution of thought, — no sudden 
emancipation of the mind by supernatural revela- 
tion, — but a gradual and general translation from 
superstition to common sense. 

In reviewing the history of this march out of 
bondage, we have not found that those who held 
themselves the apostles of immortal truth were in 
the van. To the Church the movement was 
another passing of impious heretics to destruction, 
— a masterly manoeuvre of the devil, who sought, 
by instigating the repudiation of himself, to lead 



122 ADDRESSES. 

his dupes away from the proper basis of theology, 
— but the people listened to Montaigne, Voltaire, 
and Hobbes, those arrant meddlers with the 
ancient faith, and took the path toward intellect- 
ual liberty. 

We have said that the devil reached his prime 
in the seventeenth century. At that time he was 
feared more than God was loved, — perhaps more 
than God was feared, though the more dreadful 
calamities were commonly ascribed to the wrath 
of God. At this time, too, Milton wrote his 
splendid absurdities called " Paradise Lost," in 
which he accredited Satan anew as the mighty 
archangel, the leader of heavenly hosts, the re- 
bellious and unconquered foe of God, the proud 
spirit who found it " better to reign in hell than 
serve in heaven," the subtle tempter of man, the 
author of sin, and the absolute owner in fee of 
nearly all the souls that God had created for 
himself. 

It was perhaps the proudest moment of his 
life; but he was approaching a crisis in his 
career. The belief in witchcraft died with the 
century, and from that time we trace his decline. 
But of course we do not mean to say that his 
overthrow was complete, or that his decline has 
been so rapid as to induce a confident hope that 
our generation will behold his final extinction. 
We refer to his fall as we speak of the close of 
the next century, — not doubting that time will 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 23 

compass it, — but not as an accomplished fact; 
and of course we shall not assume to number his 
declining years. In the science of facts infuturo, 
a large allowance must be made for what may 
happen of its own accord, without deference to 
our plans ; and so in predicting this event, a mar- 
gin of a few thousand years in fixing the date is 
not an unreasonable demand. We concede that 
he is not yet dead ; and although he has fallen 
into comparative decrepitude, the signs of the 
times indicate that he has not yet passed into 
the stage of " innocuous desuetude." When the 
world ceased to believe in the peculiar diabolical 
manifestations known as witchcraft and to burn 
people for impossible crimes, it certainly crippled 
the old adversary, but failed to drive him from the 
field ; just as, doubtless, the reformation of taste 
by which man learned to love his neighbor living 
better than his neighbor roasted, and ceased 
hunting him for food, marked a great advance 
toward spirituality, but did not utterly abolish 
the carnal appetites. 

We have referred to the devil's position in the 
theology of past times. This position, though 
somewhat shaken, he still retains. There is a 
certain theological code, of pretty wide author- 
ity, which contains a statute of limitations for the 
protection of error, whereby it is forbidden to 
question a fallacy after it has attained a certain 
age. In this theology the devil still plays his 



124 ADDRESSES. 

part as the responsible author and promoter of 
sin in a world in which God has created every- 
thing, devil included, and governs everything, 
devil excluded, — a sort of animated firebrand let 
loose to search out combustibles; an embodi- 
ment of evil boldly confronting omnipotence; 
a scourge to quicken love; a puzzle even to 
priests and elders. He still serves the purpose 
of the rousing exhorter, and we continue to pray 
in good set terms for deliverance from his crafts 
and assaults. While it is becoming the fashion 
of orthodox churches to help their converts over 
obstacles by assuring them that it is really not 
essential to declare implicit faith in certain ab- 
struse dogmas, there must be more concession 
still — and it will come slowly — before the devil 
can be consistently ignored. The dualism of 
Zoroaster may sometime die out of Christian 
theology ; but not until much of theology shall die 
out of Christianity, — not until the Church shall 
dare to doubt her Fathers and the premises which 
make an insatiate devil and pitiless God twin 
sequences. This change is probably not immi- 
nent, for the Church is conservative. She dearly 
loves the changeless vestments of her ancient 
faith, her solemn liturgy whose words have sylla- 
bled the praise and prayer of ages, and wisely 
looks askance at innovation. And yet she moves. 
Once she held the earth flat, the sun a nimble 
satellite, the universe still young, and man a thing 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 25 

of yesterday, because of words written by un- 
known hands, in days unknown, of things mis- 
understood ; but now she acknowledges the 
antipodes, appreciates the sun, and grants anti- 
quity to earth and man. The fires of hell were 
kindled by the torch of superstition more than 
two thousand years ago, and the Church for nearly 
as long has pointed out the lurid flame to trem- 
bling sinners ; but now this hell of fire is an ignis 
fatuus of her past, and even the name, once so 
potent, gives place to " sheol," which conveys to 
the modern mind nothing more definite or ter- 
rible than " Hades " or " Tartarus," " Orcus," 
" Gehenna," or the " dark Plutonian shore." And 
so the day may come when she will put away 
her inscrutable dogmas and study the soul, the 
great problem of life, as science studies her les- 
ser problems. When this is done, she will re- 
member that history is older than Christian 
dogma, and ethics older than recorded history. 
She will recall the ages that stretched forward to 
the birth of Christ, — a period in which historic 
time is but a day, — the splendid achievements 
of that former time, the morals of Buddha and 
Confucius, the refinements of Egypt and Greece, 
and even the meditations of heathen philosophers 
on the great phenomena of life and death. The 
human mind, which has been the cradle of errors 
innumerable, must be regarded as also the source 
of revelation. No messenger from heaven or 



126 ADDRESSES. 

supernatural miracle came with the eighteenth 
century to prove the fallacy of witchcraft. The 
human intellect wrought out for itself the correc- 
tion of its error. No voice from the great keeper 
of secrets came to tell the world that in the earth 
or spaces of the air waited a messenger swift as 
light to carry words around the world, or that out 
of fire and water might be summoned a tractable 
giant, or to explain the law of gravitation or any 
principle of science. God stored away the facts 
and left the human intellect to find its clews and 
make discovery ; and if so strange and improb- 
able a thing should happen as that the problems 
of the soul should ever be fully solved for the 
benefit of men on earth, the solution will come, 
not from the clouds, but as the product of human 
thought — perhaps the slow result of studious 
ages — perhaps the intuition of some extraordi- 
nary genius. 

But putting aside the devil of theology, how is 
it with the devil as a practical influence ? Is he 
dying? Will he revive? Shall we measure the 
remnant of his life by years or by centuries? 

It must appear, to all who care to observe, 
that superstition has still a strong hold upon the 
imagination. Let us consider our own people, 
who certainly possess more than the average intel- 
ligence and common-sense of the world ; and if 
we leave out of account the most ignorant classes, 
black and white, to whom witchcraft is still a faith 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. \2*J 

and terror, it is yet safe to say that a majority 
will still be found to have a secret or professed 
faith in the supernatural. It is still a common 
thing to say of some wretched criminal that he is 
possessed of or controlled by the devil, instead 
of saying that he is possessed of a criminal or 
besotted ancestry and controlled by his heritage 
of animalism, ignorance, poverty, and vicious 
associations ; and there is still a lurking dread of 
occult influences. The belief in lucky days and 
numbers, dreams, omens, charms, and horoscopes 
attests the fact. Doubtless many a fair maiden 
of our acquaintance, conscious that her natural 
charms are not of the repellent sort, arms herself 
against the ghostly enemy by wearing a horse- 
shoe on her chatelaine or a cherub's wish-bone in 
her bodice. But we are able to support our 
proposition by evidence much more direct and 
conclusive. Nearly every community has its cir- 
cle of spiritualists, many of whom are persons of 
education and marked intelligence, who sincerely 
believe that they are visited by the spirits of the 
departed. Certain of them profess to be able, by 
reason of some peculiarity of organization or 
temperament, to establish communication with the 
spirit-land, to do by ghostly assistance things 
otherwise impossible, to discover secrets, to 
predict coming events, to advise with superhuman 
wisdom, and even to materialize their disembodied 
visitors and make them seen and felt. Without 



128 ADDRESSES. 

stopping to discuss at length the so-called phe- 
nomena of spiritualism, let it suffice that they 
have provoked the careful investigation of non- 
believers, even scientific men, and that among 
those who reject the claims of the spiritualists 
there are many who are puzzled to explain the 
manifestations they have witnessed without con- 
ceding the possibility of spiritual agency; and it 
needs no argument to show how easily one may 
slide from the belief in a trance-medium into the 
real old-fashioned doctrine of witchcraft. 

So in the healing art the reliance upon mys- 
terious powers is very common. One person 
wears a red string about his neck as a safeguard 
against colds or rheumatism; another puts his 
faith in the egg of a black hen laid in the full of 
the moon. A few years ago it was believed by 
a large portion of our people that blue glass 
possessed the remarkable power to convert the 
sun's rays into a quick remedy for all diseases ; 
and to-day an equal number of our best people, 
many of them thoughtful and critical minds, 
honestly believe that one person may find in 
the will or concentrated thought of another, 
without recourse to medication or hygiene, a 
cure for every ailment from a broken heart to 
a bald head. Of course the advocates of the 
mind cure will defend it, without resort to magic, 
by reference to known phenomena of mind and 
matter, — perhaps in accordance with Bacon's 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 29 

theory that sympathy might cure warts ; but on 
the other hand may it not be — just possibly — 
a survival of orthodox witchcraft? It is well 
known that in old times there were divers sorts of 
witches, some wholly and ostentatiously wicked, 
and others ostensibly good. These later were 
known as "white witches." They came to the 
sick and healed them without drugs or fee ; but 
it was generally understood that the patient was 
thereby put under such obligations to their mas- 
ter the devil as no man could safely discharge. 

As this subject is one of practical and growing 
importance, let us call up a very wise and pious 
man who studied it two hundred years ago, and 
examine him as a sort of diabolical expert. The 
Rev. Increase Mather, in his " Remarkable Provi- 
dences," published in 1684, says with reference to 
these irregular healers : — 

"Let such practitioners think the best of them- 
selves, they are too near akin to those creatures 
who commonly pass under the name of 'white 
witches.' They that do hurt to others by the 
devil's help are called ' black witches ; ' but there 
are a sort of persons in the world that will never 
hurt any ; but only by the power of the infernal 
spirits they will unbewitch those that seek unto 
them for relief. I know that by Constantius his 
law black witches were to be punished, and white 
ones indulged; but Mr. Perkins saith, that the 
good witch is a more horrible and detestable 

9 



130 ADDRESSES. 

monster than the bad one. Balaam was a black 
witch, and Simon Magus a white one. This lat- 
ter did more hurt by his cures than the former 
by his curses." And again, " The persons thus 
recovered cannot say l The Lord was my healer/ 
but, 'The Devil was my healer.' Certainly it 
were better for a man to remain sick all his days, 
yea, (as Chrysostom speaks), he had better die 
than go to the devil for help." 

It seems to have been as dangerous in that 
time to be healed by a white witch as in these 
days for one who has succeeded in growing up 
under the regular practitioner to be cured by the 
white pellets of homoeopathy. Better die of a 
drug-store than live without medicine. 

Of course we do not pretend that this is real 
witchcraft; but if we admit that one person may 
by his will remove the disease of another, it will 
be easy enough to believe he may in like manner 
produce disease in another; and under the old 
law this would make him a witch. 

Such considerations lead to the conclusion that 
the faith which found expression in witchcraft 
has never been wholly abandoned; but even if 
it had been, we should hardly feel secure from 
its recurrence. 

Darwin tell us that men sometimes, by what he 
terms " reversion," reproduce peculiarities of a 
remote ancestor. Thus, for example, if Mr. 
Smith of the last century was differentiated by a 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 131 

blue nose, his great-grandson, Mr. Smythe of 
to-day, may be similarly distinguished, notwith- 
standing an intermediate line of white or red 
noses; or, if the Englishman of the seventeenth 
century devoutly believed in witches, some true 
Briton may be born to-day in Boston who shall 
grow up in the same belief. And so there is 
some ground for apprehension lest our people — 
our best people — may discover that witchcraft 
was " Early English," and revert to it. Or, if we 
reject the term " reversion " as Darwinian and 
therefore wicked, let us regard the same idea 
under cover of the goodly word " revival." Tyler 
demonstrates in his " Primitive Culture " that 
witchcraft, far from being a product of mediae- 
valism, was a revival from remote days of 
primeval history ; that prior to its revival in the 
thirteenth century it suffered a decline almost to 
extinction. So also spiritualism in this century 
is, " in great measure, a direct revival from the 
regions of savage philosophy and peasant folk- 
lore." " Planchette " was known in Europe in 
the seventeenth century, and revived in America 
within our times; while the mind-cure is but a 
recurrence of that intermittent fever of the popu- 
lar imagination which may be said to be con- 
genital with the race. Who knows what fashion 
of devil, worn and discarded by some former age, 
we may live to see revived by ours? 

There is yet another source of danger which a 



132 ADDRESSES. 

lofty sense of duty, rising superior to all consid- 
erations of personal safety, constrains us to men- 
tion. Plato tells us, and it was contended by 
the Alexandrian school and is now admitted by 
modern science, that there are women in the 
world. And what is woman? Solomon says 
that to understand her is the beginning of insan- 
ity, or something to that effect; Cato declared 
that " if the world were only free from women, 
men would not be without the converse of the 
gods ; " meaning, doubtless, that the gods might 
then be heard. 

Chrysostom pronounced her " a necessary evil, a 
natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domes- 
tic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill ; " 
and the long history of the strained relations be- 
tween earth and heaven shows that woman was 
implicated, if not wholly in fault. According to 
the rabbinical legend Adam was twice married ; 
and it is a fact well known in the family, but 
seldom mentioned, that his first wife, Lilith, 
having quarrelled with him on the question of 
headship, ran away with a person of dubious 
character and strong sulphurous odor ; and when 
her successor, Eve, saw the snake in the garden, 
did she step on him as a right-minded lady would 
naturally do? Alas! far otherwise. Painful as it 
is to criticise the conduct of our own mother, we 
are bound to say that if upon this occasion she 
had treated the devil according to his character 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 33 

and personal appearance, instead of taking his 
advice with a deference due only to archbishops 
and lawyers, he would probably have turned his 
attention to the inhabitants of some other planet 
and left man as he found him, — only a little lower 
than the angels, and far more interesting. 

Now, without going so far as to impute her 
action to inherent naughtiness or a desire to make 
trouble in society, we may at least suppose that 
she was over-credulous, and that this weakness 
has made others of her sex the especial objects of 
similar attacks ever since. Was not the Witch of 
Endor a woman? Were not the victims of the 
witchcraft prosecutions almost all women? Are 
not the women of to-day constantly imposed upon 
by masculine romance in a way that makes Eve 
seem wary and suspicious? And, finally, is there 
not in woman a subtle witchery that no man shall 
gainsay or withstand? Does not man love her 
more than anything else in the world — except him- 
self — and trust her more implicitly than even math- 
ematics or natural laws? Let us remember also 
that woman is numerous. The census embraces 
millions of her. (" Happy rascal ! " a Frenchman 
exclaims.) In New England she is said to exist 
in the proportion of one woman to seven-eighths 
of a man. And yet she has been held in subjec- 
tion by this fractional tyrant, who has forbidden 
her to vote, or to go to war or Congress. Let us 
then suppose that after a time she wearies of 



134 ADDRESSES. 

bondage and dreams of revolt ; and that in that 
fatal hour the tempter shall persuade her that a 
little punishment and discipline would improve 
the flavor of man and do him a real kindness ; 
and it will be easy to imagine that, with the 
highest motives, those who now possess us only 
to our great content may be led to play the 
devil with us after the old fashion. 

With all these tendencies and possibilities in 
view, we cannot say that the devil is dead, or even 
that he will never recover his pristine vigor. The 
world moves on, but not with equal pace. 
" Vestigia nulla retrorsum " is the law of progress 
only in the dreams of youth. Experience traces 
the backward steps full easily. It was Tennyson 
the boy who " dipt into the future, far as human 
eye could see, Saw the vision of the world and all 
the wonders that would be," and saw no back- 
ward steps ; but Tennyson the old man, " Full of 
sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his 
rest," now writes of 

" Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good, 
And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud," 

and finds that " Progress halts on palsied feet," 
and bids us 

" Still remember how the course of time will swerve, 
Crook, and turn upon itself in many a backward streaming 
curve." 

Who knows what backward flow may sweep us 



THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEVIL. 1 35 

once again into the gloom of long ago? Yet the 
world loves better the poet of youth and hope. 
Yet we 

"doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of 
the suns." 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 

Read before the Chicago Literary Club 
on June 3, 1889. 

THE season is now at hand when we, like 
other good citizens, may lay aside those 
things which we are accustomed to call the 
burdens of professional and business life, and 
seek for recreation, each according to his taste, 
his means, or the needs of those for whose wel- 
fare he is most solicitous. 

To one the mention of a summer vacation 
suggests some quiet spot in the country, perhaps 
by a pretty lake, with grass and shade for the 
children. In another it awakens recollections of 
the seashore and the sea, or the mountains, the 
forest camp, or the river and canoe. 

And because the summer sun and soft air and 
the new foliage and flowers have set me to dream- 
ing of summer days well spent and well remem- 
bered, I propose to tell this evening the story of 
how two friends escaped the heat and turmoil of 
the city and the weariness of daily life, and found 
rest and health and the keenest of pleasurable 
sensations in a Northern wilderness. 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 137 

In July, 1878, a friend who had made several 
fishing trips to the rivers of Northern Michigan 
and the shores of Lake Superior, proposed to me 
an excursion to the Nipigon River, — a stream 
of considerable size flowing into Lake Superior 
from the north, somewhat noted for its wild 
scenery, and famous among sportsmen as the 
finest trout-stream in America. 

At that time the Nipigon was difficult of access. 
It could be reached at long intervals by steam- 
boat from Duluth, and otherwise only by a long 
and somewhat dangerous trip by sailboat. This 
fact, together with the time required, and the 
elaborate provision to be made in the way of 
camp outfit and supplies, deterred most sports- 
men from attempting the trip. My friend, how- 
ever, is, as you all know, a gentleman who delights 
in hard tasks, and is always ready to join in any 
difficult undertaking upon the sole condition that 
he shall be allowed to do most of the work ; and 
knowing this peculiarity, I accepted his proposi- 
tion and even assented to this condition. So 
without taking time to be assisted by me, he went 
ahead and made the necessary preparations. 

By correspondence with the managers of a line 
of Canadian steamers running to Duluth, he ar- 
ranged to have a certain boat take us at the Sault 
Ste. Marie, and land us at the mouth of the 
Nipigon on its westward trip. He then bought 
supplies, — flour, pork, canned meats, tea, coffee, 



138 ADDRESSES. 

condensed milk, hard-tack, and other things too 
numerous to be now remembered, — and had 
them packed in boxes of a size convenient for 
carrying, each box being numbered and its con- 
tents recorded in a general index. 

He also had his fine tents and camp outfit 
overhauled and put in order, superintended the 
purchase of fishing-tackle, and took thought con- 
cerning woollen socks, hobnailed shoes, rubber 
coats, mosquito-netting, needles and thread, and 
other details. In the mean time I was not idle. 
I talked about the importance of getting things 
ready, and strapped my own valise when it was 
packed. 

Having thus prepared ourselves, we left Chi- 
cago on the 1 8th day of July, and proceeded by 
steamer to the Sault. Here we were compelled 
to wait a day for the boat which was to take us 
across Lake Superior ; and while thus detained we 
fell in with a gentleman from Indiana, who was 
on his way to the North Shore. 

He was a keen sportsman, and very anxious to 
visit the Nipigon ; and as he seemed a compan- 
ionable man, we invited him to join our party, 
which he was apparently very glad to do, and so 
together we embarked for Nipigon Bay, where we 
expected to get Indians and canoes for the river. 

The next morning we awoke to find ourselves 
drifting in a dense fog among the islands of the 
North Shore, about fifty miles from the river. 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 1 39 

The Captain had not taken this course for 
many years, and feared to proceed ; and so, after 
waiting some hours, in vain for the fog to lift, he 
proposed to steam out into the lake and make 
for Duluth. This, of course, meant for us a long 
detour, and the probable defeat of our plans, and 
therefore we induced him to return to a light- 
house, on one of the islands we had just passed, 
to enable us to inquire about other means of 
transportation. Fortunately we found on this 
island a band of Indians who had a sailboat, — 
an old and battered craft, but still staunch and 
large enough for our purpose, — and here we 
took leave of the steamer, and intrusted our selves 
and possessions to the guileless savages, who 
agreed for such and such moneys to carry us 
to the Nipigon. 

Of this trip I will not stop to speak in detail, 
though it was not without interest and incident. 
Failing to make the run, as we had hoped, in one 
day, we were compelled to land on a rocky island 
and make camp for the night, — by no means a 
pleasant experience, as it involved a general un- 
packing and repacking of outfit, and the camp 
was a most uncomfortable one. 

Our Indians, four in number, could not speak 
or understand English, and the sign language is 
not especially adapted to a dark night in a dense 
thicket; hence some confusion and a little pro- 
fanity, — the latter being executed by the gen- 



140 ADDRESSES. 

tleman from Indiana, but promptly forgiven by 
the gentlemen from Illinois. 

The leader of these Indians was a tall, splendid 
fellow, silent and grave, with regular features and 
a thoughtful mien, — in marked contrast to the 
others. We grew to regard him with an admi- 
ration akin to awe; and even when it became 
apparent that he considered us but ordinary 
dudes and frivolous, we still admired him. 

The next morning we reached Red Rock, the 
Hudson Bay Company's post at the mouth of the 
Nipigon, and after dismissing our crew, were in- 
terested to learn that our noble chief — he of the 
lofty countenance and serious eyes — was the 
most distinguished thief in all that Northern 
country. But still we admired him; and for 
days thereafter, especially on failing to find 
some useful articles formerly of our baggage, 
we would speak of him in terms of affectionate 
remembrance. 

At Red Rock we engaged two large birch-bark 
canoes and four Indians, or half-breeds, to man 
them ; and after purchasing from the agent further 
supplies for these men, and waiting for the canoes 
to be freshly gummed, we started early the next 
morning for our trip up the river. 

My friend and I occupied one canoe, with two 
of the guides and part of the baggage, and the 
gentleman from Indiana took the other, with two 
guides and the remainder of the baggage. 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 141 

Each canoe was large enough to carry a load 
of nearly or quite a thousand pounds, and yet so 
light as to be readily borne on the shoulders of 
two men at the portages. Each was fitted out 
with roughly made rowlocks and oars ; but as a 
rule our Indians used the paddle, — one sitting at 
the stern and the other kneeling at the bow; we 
reclined amidships, propped up by rolls of blank- 
ets, travelling bags, and other soft impedimenta 
of the party. In the arrangement of our section, 
my friend displayed his usual energy and taste 
for the luxurious, and the result was a couch on 
which Cleopatra might have reclined in her favor- 
ite yachting suit with perfect comfort, — it was so 
smooth and soft. 

By this achievement, and a long series of 
devices for my comfort, and incidentally his own, 
he won and retained the title of the Sybarite, by 
which he will henceforth appear in this truthful 
record. 

During this first day's journey we made no 
attempt at fishing, having determined to push 
on as rapidly as possible to the better fishing- 
grounds of the upper river ; so we had nothing 
to do but to enjoy the wild scenery and the novel 
pleasure of canoeing. Reclining at ease, the 
Sybarite with his baleful cigarette and I with my 
harmless pipe, we glided over the smooth water 
where the river widens into a pretty lake, or 
crept slowly along beneath the overhanging 



142 ADDRESSES. 

branches of the trees, where the Indians labori- 
ously held our boat up against the swift current 
in the narrows. The clear, bracing air, the chang- 
ing beauties of rocks and trees, dark pools and 
tumbling rapids, the constant laughter and 
strange language of our guides, and our own 
bright anticipations of glorious sport ahead, — all 
combined to make this day delightful. The 
sense of freedom, the feeling that we were leav- 
ing far behind us the vexing cares of life, and 
above all the delicious intoxication of woollen 
shirts and soft hats, quite overcame us. We 
cracked jokes on the unheeding Indians, laughed 
long and loud at stories we had often heard in 
silence, and even sang songs, — that is, the Syba- 
rite and I sang ; but for some reason which I 
never could divine, the gentleman from Indiana, 
who at home was a teacher of vocal music and a 
singer of renown, did not join us. 

Early in the afternoon we reached Camp Alex- 
ander, at the foot of the first portage, and made 
camp ; or rather we left two Indians to make 
camp, and, taking the others and one canoe, forced 
our way a little distance up the river, with intent 
to catch some trout for our supper. This was 
easily accomplished. 

In less than an hour we had taken as many 
trout as we dared to think of eating that night, 
and returned to find our camp in order and the 
kitchen fire waiting for our fish. The trout taken 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 1 43 

here were small, running from a pound to a pound 
and a half in weight, but very numerous and 
eager for the fly. I find by reference to my notes 
that I used two flies and took five pairs, besides 
several single fish; and I am willing to admit 
that the Sybarite surpassed me, although it is not 
a fact. 

Here we made the important discovery that our 
chief guide, Frangois, was a capital cook. At 
least, he knew how to broil trout; and probably 
he discovered that we knew how to eat them. 
Here, too, we made the acquaintance of Francois's 
interesting family, which had followed us up the 
river in two canoes, and camped near us. This 
family consisted of an old squaw, two middle-aged 
squaws, and a lot of children. 

The old squaw we took to be his mother, the 
other two his wives, or perhaps his wife and a 
visiting friend, and the children we classified as 
young Indians, without attempting to trace their 
parentage. We wondered how they had managed 
to ascend the river, and why they had followed 
us, but could get no explanation from Francois 
except that they were going somewhere. 

We learned also that they were omnivorous, — 
at least, nothing in our larder came amiss to them, 
— and realized that a few days of their society 
would breed a famine in the camp. But after the 
pleasures of the day we were too complaisant to 
be easily disturbed by such reflections, and there- 



144 ADDRESSES. 

fore enjoyed our evening about the camp-fire, and 
then betook ourselves to our tents and fragrant 
beds of balsam boughs, at peace with all the 
world. 

The next day we made the long portage to the 
head of the rapids, carrying light loads ourselves 
and leaving the Indians to follow with the canoes 
and baggage. 

As the distance was about two miles, and sev- 
eral trips were required, it was quite noon before 
the task was accomplished and we were again 
afloat, and nearly dark before we reached our 
camp at the lower end of Pine Portage. 

Francois's family had started before us in the 
morning, and we found them encamped here, 
anxiously awaiting the arrival of our party and 
supplies ; so we were relieved of all fear lest the 
trout we had taken en route should be wasted. 

The next morning, after an early breakfast, we 
started across the portage, and, after walking over 
a mile, took a narrow path diverging to the right, 
and followed it down a steep and heavily wooded 
hill to the river at a point called Hamilton's Pool, 
a favorite spot with those who fish the Nipigon. 

Here the river, parted by a small island, plunges 
by short and broken rapids into a pool several 
acres in extent, near the centre of which the mass 
of waters divides into two strong currents, — one 
setting back along the shore to the entrance of 
the rapids, and the other sweeping down to the 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 145 

outlet in the rapids below. At the head of the 
pool the water seems to boil up from unfathom- 
able depths and then rushes and eddies around 
the great masses of rocks on the eastern shore. 

On the western shore the land slopes down to 
a little meadow, by which the water is quiet and 
shallow and the bottom of smooth sand. 

It was at this point that we approached the 
pool, and looking into the clear water beheld a 
sight which caused us to draw back and open 
our rod-cases with nervous haste. There, close 
under the shore, were a dozen fine trout, not one 
of them less than eighteen inches in length, and 
not a tree or tall bush near enough to interfere 
with the play of our lines. 

We felt that this was our appointed day and 
hour, and each man jointed his rod and hastened 
to adjust his line, leader, and flies, as if his soul's 
salvation depended on his getting the first catch 
in that pool. 

It was terrible. The selfish instinct, which 
generally lies dormant in such breasts as ours, was 
aroused, and all the evil passions of the human 
heart were getting into action, when the Sybarite, 
who had gotten into a tangle and fallen behind, 
proposed that we should wait until all were ready 
and then cast together. This was agreed to, and 
so we waited until he, noticing that we had put 
but one fly on our leaders, quietly noosed two on 
his, and then together we approached the bank and 

10 



I46 ADDRESSES. 

made our cast. Each fly was taken as it touched 
the water, and four fish, securely hooked, darted 
out into the deep pool ; and then there was the 
sight of leaping trout, the music of clicking reels, 
and the strain of the pliant rods for nearly half an 
hour, and then four beauties lying on the grass, 
and two plain men and the Sybarite standing 
over them and feeling that life is worth living. 

These four trout were of nearly uniform size, and 
together weighed over nine pounds. 

The sport so well begun continued until we 
had taken eighteen fine trout, weighing in the 
aggregate forty-four pounds, and then, our In- 
dians having brought our baggage over the 
carry, we devoted ourselves to making camp, — 
which we did with especial care, as we had 
resolved to spend some days at this attractive 
spot. 

While we were thus engaged, Francois's faithful 
family came trooping down the path and selected 
as a place of residence the immediate neighbor- 
hood of our kitchen and supply tent. 

We felt that something must be done ; and that 
evening we invited Frangois to enter our pres- 
ence, and proceeded to discuss the situation with 
him. For a time the fact that he understood but 
few words of the various languages at our com- 
mand threatened to defeat the object of the 
meeting. 

We tried English, in short words with panto- 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 1 47 

mime accompaniments, but each reference to his 
family served only to call a proud smile to his 
puzzled face. Then the Sybarite bethought him- 
self of French, which was supposed to enter into 
the language of these natives ; but as he declined, 
even in such an emergency, to disguise his pure 
Parisian accent and idioms, the untutored savage 
merely drank in the music of his words, without 
the slightest comprehension of his arguments. 

German he seemed to fear, and Latin quota- 
tions proved as ineffectual as all the rest. And 
yet we succeeded. In many tongues we told him 
that while we were naturally fond of female soci- 
ety and doted on children, yet we had come to 
this remote wilderness to see if we could live 
without such luxuries, and did not wish to have 
our experience interfered with ; that it gave us, 
as mere humanitarians, exquisite pleasure to see 
his dear ones so happy with our provisions, but 
that while we did n't mind going hungry for a few 
weeks, we felt that we owed it to our own dependent 
families not to starve beyond a certain point on 
this pleasure-trip. And then, having thus fully 
explained our motives, we executed certain ma- 
noeuvres in the direction of his flock which evi- 
dently convinced him of our unsocial desires ; for 
the next morning the women and children had 
disappeared, and certain of our edibles were said 
to have been taken by wild beasts. 

At this camp we spent a week, fishing in the 



I48 ADDRESSES. 

morning and evening, and reading novels, talk- 
ing trout, and taking naps in the middle of the 
day. 

The sport continued to be excellent; and we 
found it necessary, in order to prevent the taking 
of more trout than we could use, to limit the 
hours of fishing and to release all trout appearing 
to be under two pounds in weight. 

Here is the record, as I find it in my notes, of 
my own experiences, on the third day of our stay 
at this pool. I read it, not in a vainglorious 
spirit, but because it serves to give some idea of 
the sport at this place, and especially because it 
supplies the description of a fight between a trout 
and a fly-rod which no such narrative should be 
without. 

The next morning I arose early, and, leaving 
my companions asleep, took two of the guides 
with a canoe and went across the pool to try the 
early fishing by the other shore. I found the 
trout eager, and returned to camp before break- 
fast with a string of nine, averaging about two 
pounds. After breakfast we all fished, and at 
noon my catch had increased to twenty-five, and 
I felt constrained to stop for the day. 

The others went out again, and I lounged in 
the tent with a novel ; but I found the book not 
half so fascinating as the broad pool in front of 
me, on the further side of which I could see the 
Sybarite standing with bent rod and taut line try- 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 149 

ing the mettle of some brave captive in the depths 
below; and finally, under pretext of trying a 
new fly of extraordinary hues which I had con- 
structed, and feeling that I should be excusable 
in killing any fish that could be deceived by such 
a patent fraud, I took my rod and strolled alone, 
with my pipe and book, down the shore. Just 
below our camp was a large rock standing well 
out from the shore in the heavy current, and, mak- 
ing my way to this, I tried a few casts, but without 
getting a rise; so I lit my pipe, and, stretching 
myself on the rock, devoted myself alternately to 
reading my book and watching my friends in the 
canoes. Soon, however, I noticed the trout leap- 
ing, and determined to try again ; and for some 
reason, perhaps for the purpose of trying my new 
fly in competition with the standard article, 
noosed a brown hackle in the leader above, and 
made a cast with the two flies. 

As they settled lightly on the water, I saw the 
quick flash of leaping trout, and the next instant 
my reel fairly screamed, as the startled game 
rushed down the stream. 

I could not tell whether I had hooked one fish 
or two, but I knew that I had never seen so 
strong a run as that. I tried cautiously to check 
it; but there was too much life and strength at 
the end of my line, and the slender silk flew 
through the rings until I had but a single layer 
on the reel and the fish had almost reached the 



150 ADDRESSES. 

rapids below, in which such tackle could not have 
held for a moment. Now for the test of my little 
rod. I checked the line, and the slender bamboo 
took the strain and bent under it until it seemed 
that it must fly in pieces, but it held ; and with 
struggles that sent a quiver through rod and arm 
clear to my shoulder, the gallant fish rose slowly 
to the surface just above the rapids, and, hanging 
there a moment, yielded to the rod and came 
slowly back. 

I thought this furious run had exhausted the 
game, and reeled in with confidence; but after 
coming about fifty feet in a sullen, reluctant way, 
the trout made another rush, apparently as fresh 
as ever, but this time across the current. Again 
the rod won, and I received my line only to meet 
another run ; and so the fight went on. In half 
an hour from the time I struck, one of the guides 
came down from the camp with a landing net, and 
I got in line enough to see that I had two fish, 
one well spent, but the other still strong, and it 
was some time longer before they could be safely 
brought to net. They weighed three pounds and 
two and one half pounds respectively, and were as 
fine and vigorous trout as I ever saw. 

I then returned to the camp content to stop ; 
my catch for the day being twenty-seven fish, 
weighing over sixty-two pounds. 

Here we had a call from two gentlemen from 
Massachusetts who were going down the river. 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 1 5 I 

They reported the fishing good at several points 
above, and the trout larger than in this pool. 

These were the only white men we saw on the 
river, and we gladly entertained them with the 
best our camp afforded, and on their departure 
sent letters to be mailed by them in the States. 

It was at this camp that the Nipigon mosquito, 
which had been enamoured of our persons ever 
since we reached the river, fairly outdid himself 
in acts of devotion, and impressed himself indeli- 
bly on our memories. He is a bird resembling 
the curlew in general appearance and bony struc- 
ture, having a morbid thirst for blood and the 
entree of every man. He is believed to be strictly 
carnivorous, and lives on the fat of the land. The 
only thing that checks his appetite for the human 
countenance is a thick coating of tar and oil ; and 
the only objection to the tar and oil is that the 
odor clings to a man even unto the third and 
fourth generation. 

After a week at this spot we broke camp and 
started up the river, intending to follow it to its 
source in Lake Nipigon, and hoping to find the 
traditional five-pounder without which we felt that 
we could never return to our homes. 

We found the river narrower, and the rapids 
more frequent and difficult, but made good pro- 
gress, and early in the afternoon camped about a 
mile below the Grand Chute at the head of the 
river. 



152 ADDRESSES. 

Here we spent some days, making short excur- 
sions in our canoes to the rapids below and to the 
falls at Lake Nipigon, and seldom failing of good 
sport. On the occasion of our first visit to the 
falls, the Sybarite took a fine trout weighing five 
and one half pounds and measuring twenty-two 
and one half inches in length ; and each day trout 
of four to five pounds were taken. 

One day we carried a canoe around the falls and 
paddled about among the islands at the lower end 
of Lake Nipigon. This lake, which appears on the 
map as a mere dot, is about ninety miles long and 
sixty miles wide, and its outlet, the Nipigon River, 
is about thirty-five miles long, and is said to have 
a fall of three hundred and twenty-seven feet in 
this distance. 

Our trip down the river was easily made. The 
paddles of our savage guides, aided by the swift 
current, bore us rapidly along, and in several 
places we shot the rapids, which in ascending the 
river we had carried around. 

In this there was great excitement. The watch- 
ful guides, firmly braced at either end of the 
canoes, with paddles poised for the quick, sure 
stroke that was needed from time to time to guide 
the frail boat past hidden rocks, and hoarsely 
shouting to each other above the noise of plung- 
ing waters ; the passing of the canoe ; the dash- 
ing spray, — these things it is easy and pleasant 
to recall. 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 1 53 

Had it not been for our perfect confidence in 
the skill of our boatmen, we should have felt that 
to shoot these rapids was about as dangerous as 
to shoot ourselves. 

Having ample time to reach Red Rock before 
the steamboat which was to take us could arrive, 
we stopped from time to time at the pools and 
rapids and easily kept up our supply of trout. 

One of these occasions I recall with mingled 
feelings of pride and shame. 

At one of the portages, while the guides were 
engaged in transporting the boats and baggage, 
I left the party, and going to a little pool below 
the rapids made a few casts and soon succeeded 
in landing a fine trout, twenty- three inches long. 
I weighed him carefully, at once, for a fish 
loses weight in drying, and ought to be weighed 
promptly. 

I was alone. No human eye but mine saw the 
figures on the steelyard. Then, as I walked back 
to my friends, knowing that they would admire 
my trout and immediately demand his weight, 
and feeling reasonably certain that they would 
take any statement as conclusive on that point, 
I was sorely tempted. I reflected that, ever since 
the episode of Jonah and his whale, strict accu- 
racy had never been required of our race in fish 
stories, and that the best of men, even clergymen 
and presidents of literary clubs, had cultivated 
the habit of embellishing such narratives without 



1 54 ADDRESSES. 

impairing their general reputation for veracity. 
I recalled a conversation with a certain distin- 
guished member of this club, and how he told 
me that on the Matapedia he had hooked a fifty 
pound salmon through the left ear-lobe, and 
killed him after a thrilling contest of nineteen 
hours and seven minutes, and how, when I ven- 
tured to suggest that salmon were not ordinarily 
equipped with ear-lobes, he assured me that that 
was the curious thing about it, — that this was 
the only salmon ever seen with such appendages ; 
and how I then gave it up ; and I reflected that, 
notwithstanding such lapses from the straight and 
narrow path, this gentleman's word was com- 
monly accepted when he spoke of the weather, 
or mentioned how he felt, or said what he would 
take, or in any of the ordinary concerns of life. 
I knew it was an axiom in anthropology that no 
man ever caught a big fish and told the exact 
truth about it, and I shrank from posing as a 
freak ; and so by the time I rejoined my friends, 
the question of conscience was settled, and so I 
said the trout weighed just five pounds. I have 
repeated this statement at intervals for more than 
ten years, and all the time I have known that it 
was false. This will surprise you. I do not at- 
tempt to account for it; but being resolved no 
longer to bear about the heavy secret of this my 
first and only lie, I simply confess it, and take 
this occasion publicly to declare that the exact 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON. 1 55 

weight of that trout was not five pounds, as I 
have heretofore insisted, but just five pounds and 
a half. This, however, is the only case in which 
I ever suppressed the truth about a fish to the 
extent of half a pound, though I always aim to 
be a little under-true. 

We reached Red Rock in good season for the 
boat, and after paying off our guides and dis- 
tributing the remnants of our commissary stores, 
took leave of the river, and finally reached Chicago 
after an absence of just a month, well satisfied 
with our outing and firmly resolved to repeat the 
trip another season. 

Year after year we made our plans only to see 
them " gang agley ; " but at last, seven years 
later, the Fates were propitious, and the Sybarite 
and I, having induced two other members of this 
Club to accompany us, revisited the river, — 
going this time by rail to Duluth, and thence by 
boat to Port Arthur, and thence, by the Canadian 
Pacific, to Red Rock. But the place was sadly 
changed. 

Near the old post was a railway station with a 
telegraph office. Over the rapids just above was 
a great railway bridge. There were gangs of 
laborers at work along the track, and shanties 
near by, and the whole place seemed to suffer 
from the first rude touch of civilization. 

We secured our guide and boat, and lost no 
time in starting up the river; and, once away 



156 ADDRESSES. 

from the railroad and out of the white man's 
world, the old charm was upon us, and again we 
knew the happiness of cloudless, careless days 
and dreamless nights. 

Suffice it to say of this second trip that while 
good fellowship and rare weather and fair sport 
made it most delightful, yet in some respects the 
conditions were less favorable than before. The 
railroad had made the river more accessible, and 
increased the number of visitors, not all of whom 
were true sportsmen. 

We met one or two parties that seemed to 
have bought their supplies by the gallon only, 
and whose conception of a fishing trip was one 
long cheerful effort to slake the unslakable. 

The river was unusually high, and at pools 
where before we had found abundant sport the 
trout would hardly take the fly. On the rapids, 
however, we succeeded better ; and although the 
record of our catch on this trip is less in point of 
numbers, it shows larger trout and higher average 
weight than on the former visit. I find that we 
took seven trout of over five pounds, — the largest 
weighing six and a fourth and six and a half 
pounds respectively, — and to avert temptation 
from the other members of the party I will admit 
that I took the largest one myself, and that on 
this occasion I have given the full weight. One 
morning two of the party brought in a string of 
five trout weighing in the aggregate twenty-three 



A TRIP TO THE NIPIGON*. 157 

pounds. I give the weight as reported by these 
gentlemen, and believe it to be correct ; for this 
was a rare occasion — and these gentlemen tell 
the truth on rare occasions. 

This is a record which probably few Chicago 
sportsmen have surpassed. Mr. Mason, in his 
"History of the Original Town and Kinsie's 
Addition," speaks of the great trout which Mar- 
quette took in the rapids of the Chicago River ; 
but there are those who dispute the trout and 
some who doubt the rapids. 



THE BELL(E)S OF YALE. 

Delivered at the Second Annual Banquet of the 
Chicago Yale Association in December, 1868, in 
Response to the Toast of " The Bell(e)s of 
Yale." 

(" Sweet Evening Bells.") 

THE toast evidently bears some distant refer- 
ence to lovely women. But it is now getting 
late, and for brevity's sake I shall consider but a 
portion of the ladies of New Haven under this title, 
and for the same reason spare that profane com- 
mittee-man who buttered my toast with a pun, 
leaving a possible doubt of my real subject. 

" The Bell(e)s of Yale, — Sweet Evening 
Bells." We all remember them; and, fortu- 
nately, most of us remember the same ones. 
For though time tells upon all things, it tells very 
slowly upon some ; and there are now some fair 
ones connected with the college, still apparently 
in the prime of life, still endowed with the same 
gushing affections and the same guileless belief 
in man, who have, to say the least, acquired an 
easement in the admiration of Yale men. It is 
they who are gracious to Freshmen in memory of 



THE BELL{E)S OF YALE. 1 59 

their fathers before them, and engaged to Juniors 
from force of habit. 

Mr. President, I would not for one moment 
— not by one word — assail the fair fame of these 
budding flowerets, these perpetual roses, that 
skirt the path of learning to light it with their 
wayside bloom. I have too profound an admira- 
tion for their achievements and their chronic 
loveliness ; too respectful a deference to the sor- 
rows of their annual widowhood; too careful a 
regard for that bald head between us, reflecting 
the chandelier like a mirror, whose raven locks 
may once have known the gentle dalliance of 
their fair fingers. Rather, sir, they are entitled 
to the largest measure of our gratitude to-night ; 
for they give half the charm to the recollections 
of our college days. There, in memory, are the 
same old walls, each the palimpsest rewritten 
with the histories of succeeding generations ; 
the same old elms above them, still painting their 
shadow pictures on the walls ; the same old bell 
that used to call us to the routine duties of the 
day; and the same old belles who used to sum- 
mon us to the pastimes of the evening. They 
lived for a brief season in our affections, sur- 
vived a corresponding period in belles-lettres, and 
then, for us, passed into memory. But doubtless, 
like Webster, they " still live," and, like Tenny- 
son's New Year Bells, continue to " ring out the 
old, ring in the new." 



160 ADDRESSES. 

But though, out of my veneration, and because 
of their distinctive title to the name, I have 
spoken of these first as the " Belles of Yale," 
there are others to be remembered. To an eye 
observant of the developments of nature and the 
effects of art, each year is fraught with some new 
belles ; and perhaps it may have been your 
happiness to discover one of these, — possibly 
immured within the walls of that Elm Street 
" Nunnery " you all remember, or in other of the 
boarding-schools. Ah ! my venerable brothers, 
has it never been your fortune, after having over- 
come all the obstacles of rules and regulations 
and established the necessary relationship, while 
seated within those sacred parlors, close by the 
object of your adoration, enjoying the delicious 
throes of ecstatic bliss, to have the presiding genius 
of the place appear before you in bodily presence 
and, with all the cold sublimity of an iceberg, — 
or an oyster, — proceed to disorganize things? 
Such things are common. Such things give a 
zest to the pursuit of learning. Or, possibly, the 
longings of your nature for feminine perfection 
were not satisfied by these formative divinities, 
with all their cultured emotions and accomplished 
feelings. Perhaps not within the broad confines 
of fair New Haven, but rather within the classic 
precincts and among the untrammeled beauties 
of Fair Haven was the paragon discovered. Such 
things have happened, and such happenings have 



THE BELL{E)S OF YALE. l6l 

given birth to surprising results. I will here 
mention, for the aggravation of our older friends 
present, that a horse railway now connects the 
two cities, which lessens very materially the labor 
of loving an oyster-maid. 

But, jesting aside, although there are some 
ludicrous reminiscences which the toast has 
sprung upon us, there is still occasion for a single 
word of serious sentiment. It is not possible that 
all of us have passed from matriculation to Com- 
mencement, enjoying the full advantages of our 
position, with our affections and social instincts 
enlisted and quickened by the sympathy of 
chosen friends, and our appreciation of the noble 
and beautiful in aesthetics and humanity alike de- 
veloped by the process of our course, without 
some pleasant recollections to-night from a source 
outside the college walls. It is neither extrava- 
gance nor vapid sentiment if I imagine that in 
some of you to-night the call of my toast has 
awakened recollections that have slumbered for 
years, — has recalled a fair face almost forgotten 
till now in the exigencies of our later years ; the 
echoes of once familiar tones long silent amid the 
voices that fill our ears ; the vision of a girlish 
form almost obliterated by the nearer presence of 
those who make our homes and our social circles 
now ; and you start to find how little is forgotten. 
Her sympathy, her friendship, or her love, it may 
be, struck deeper than you knew, and she stands 

ii 



1 62 ADDRESSES. 

forth so clearly in the retrospect to-night, — not as 
she may be now, the low-voiced matron of 
some home, but as then, the bright vision of 
an old-time hope, — that it seems to each as if the 
response must be made for her alone. And so, 
in brief, it is given. We 've touched our glasses 
to-night in honor of the girl whose face you saw 
in yours ; whose tones you still remember in the 
words of kindly sympathy and timid praise that 
were more to you than you ever dreamed ; in 
whose deep eyes you looked for inspiration once ; 
from whose pure lips you took the sacrament of 
youth's religion. 



OUR CLIENTS. 

Delivered at the Chicago Bar Association Banquet, 
on December 28, 1876, in response to the Toast of 
"Our Clients." 

IT is certainly fitting that upon an occasion 
when lawyers assemble to eat, drink, and be 
merry, there should be some remembrance of the 
clients. But just why it has fallen to me to speak 
to this toast I can hardly say, unless possibly 
your Committee considered that my limited 
knowledge of the subject would assure the brevity 
of my remarks. They forgot, perhaps, how hard 
it is to be short to a client — especially if he 
belong to us. 

I suppose that ever since God called upon 
Adam, according to that respectable old story, 
to plead to the first indictment, by asking him 
" Hast thou eaten of the tree? " every nation has 
provided a forum of some sort for the settlement 
of human controversies and the punishment of 
crime. But just when the necessity of a vicari- 
ous appearance at the bar called the first law- 
yer and the first client into existence is a matter 
of deep obscurity. Certain it is, however, that 
the order of clients is an old one, and has brought 



1 64 ADDRESSES. 

down with it from antiquity the sympathy of the 
world ; for Luke says, " Woe unto you, also, ye 
lawyers ! for ye lade men with burdens grievous 
to be borne." And to-day a man expects the 
same commiseration of his friends whether he 
submit himself to a lawyer or a surgeon. 

Clients, however, have little sense of justice. 
They cannot even find out what it is without the 
aid of counsel, and half the time fail to recognize 
it when found and paid for. So we can perhaps 
afford to give them their conclusions and take a 
kindly interest in them. They should remember 
that in the Augustan Age the client was an inferior 
being dependent upon a patrician patron, — a 
sort of hereditary property, bound to contribute 
to his patron's support, to fight for him in war, 
and to vote for him. Alas ! what a change has 
been wrought. They may have borne burdens 
in Luke's day, but they have a great many privi- 
leges now. 

To the popular mind the most obvious relation 
between lawyer and client is the pecuniary one ; 
and of course there is such a relation, and it has 
its importance. As the clergyman devotes him- 
self to a life of faith and pew-rents, and the phy- 
sician weds Science for the love of her and 
the dowry she brings, so we have robed our- 
selves as ministers in the Temple of Justice with 
an eye to the gate-money of the pilgrims. Our 
clients are right in supposing that we have this 



OUR CLIENTS. 165 

interest in them ; and they are at liberty to mag- 
nify it as much as they please, and as soon as 
they please to convert it from a mere expectancy 
into an estate in fee. 

There is an old English theory that the advo- 
cate serves his client for love of justice and not 
for pay, — though he takes a sufficient present in 
advance, which, like attorneys' fees paid to mem- 
bers of Congress, has some remote connection with 
the service to be rendered, — and I am sorry to say 
that some of our clients seem to cling to this old 
English idea rather more tenaciously than we do. 

It 's a great mistake. A lawyer is not a " casus 
omissus " in the law of compensation. He gives 
lore ; he demands hire. If properly encouraged 
in the customary way, he can do almost anything. 
He can vindicate the integrity of a thief. He can 
" go to the country " without leaving the court- 
room. He can reach the feelings of a common- 
law judge or wake the dormant faculties of a 
jury. He fears no obstacle, from a receipt in full 
to the rule in Shelley's case ; but he is invariably 
paralyzed by an " estoppel in pais." 

I shall not attempt, Mr. President, to classify 
our clients. I would as soon undertake to clas- 
sify the defences under the General Issue, or the 
Authorities on Negligence. But there is infinite 
variety. My brother Withrow's pet client, for 
instance, is a corporation. Now he may be able 
to preserve his rectitude in dealing with a thing all 



1 66 ADDRESSES. 

pocket and no soul ; but I don't believe I 'm honest 
enough to do just right by a client that I can't 
have the slightest apprehension of meeting in 
either department of the next world, after all that 
is hidden shall be made known. This is one of 
the reasons why I have refrained from being 
invited to represent railroads. And the other 
day in the Federal Court I saw one of our breth- 
ren engaged in defending fifty barrels of high 
wines ; but whether he was actuated more by the 
prevalent desire to reform the Government or by 
love of his client, I cannot say. And, by the way, 
the fact that the Government, whenever it would 
take a little whiskey or tobacco, is compelled to 
submit the matter to a temperance judge and a 
jury of the good and true, ought to reconcile us 
to our lot as mere individuals. 

Then there is the ministerial client, who is con- 
cerned about treasures in the wrong world, and 
invariably declines to profane his pulpit ethics by 
bringing it into business controversies ; and the 
female client, with her many grievances, for which, 
we tell her with deep emotion, there ought to be 
some remedy, but isn't; and the eccentric client. 
I well remember the first client I ever had was of 
this class. He gave me a small note to collect. 
At that time, I believe, I realized fully and liter- 
ally Lord Brougham's idea of the advocate. In 
the performance of my duty I knew that one 
client and none other; and, as Dr. Johnson says 



OUR CLIENTS. 1 67 

a lawyer should, I did the best I could for him, 
and gave my attention to that case. I prepared 
a careful brief to prove that assumpsit would lie, 
and then brought suit and declared on that note 
till you could n't find a variance with a microscope. 
I hoped for success ; but to my anxious mind the 
action was as purely speculative as the selection 
of a mother-in-law. Finally, by the ingenious 
device of taking default for want of a plea and 
swearing to a masterly computation of interest, I 
obtained judgment, which the defendant soon 
paid. Some time afterward I presented a modest 
bill to my client, and to my great surprise he 
insisted on doubling it; and, being a large and 
decided man, he succeeded in accomplishing 
his purpose. Judging from my uniform experi- 
ence in my one case, I then supposed this was a 
common custom with clients, and a thing likely 
to occur frequently. That was one of the errors 
ofyouth. 

Then there is that unfortunate client who is 
periodically sacrificed by his attorney. I know 
a man who has been pretty uniformly unsuccess- 
ful in his cases, and explains how in each case he 
was " sold out " by his lawyer. I don't blame 
him so much for being sold out, but I do object 
to his betraying professional secrets in this way. 

And we all know that wily and pestilent client 
whose pride of intellect fills him with a noble 
ambition to outwit his lawyer, and get his law for 



1 68 ADDRESSES. 

nothing. When I think of that man, I feel there 
must be a sub-cellar in Hades. 

And sometimes, Mr. President, there comes to 
our offices — and often, as I know, to yours, sir, 
— another client : some poor man, it may be, 
half starving for the want of the unpaid wages of 
his hard labor; or, perhaps, some ignorant, 
helpless widow, who has nothing in the world 
but a mean little home, where she is struggling in 
squalid poverty to keep her little ones together ; 
and she must appeal to the law to save her even 
this. Some one has told her that you are good 
and wise, and she comes and asks for advice or 
assistance just as she might come to your door 
and beg for bread ; and she gets it, and pays you 
with tears and prayers. Well, you have given to 
her hours that might have been coined into dol- 
lars. But you have laid away forever, in that 
yesterday that even God can't change, something 
that shall be riches to you hereafter, — a deed 
done not for Mammon, but because of the God 
within you. And so long as your heart shall be 
open to the sense of human kinship, you will 
sometimes be glad to put aside the consciousness 
of honors and plenty won for yourself, and turn 
to the sweet assurance that in that poor charity 
client's miserable home, hunger and cold pinch 
not quite so sharply, and sad hearts are a little 
lighter, because of your hand stretched out in the 
name of humanity. 



THE KING'S ENGLISH. 

Delivered at the Chicago Bar Association Banquet on 
January io, 1888, in Response to the Toast of "The 
King's English." 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — Your 
Committee having declined to assume any re- 
sponsibility for what I might do this evening, I 
have been left to select my own topic ; and I 
have chosen one which attracted me especially 
by its apparent elasticity. I propose to devote 
the few short hours which we may call our own, 
before this room will be required by the family 
for breakfast, to the consideration of a certain 
subject which, if not amusing, may perhaps be 
found instructive. But before taking up the 
more abstruse matters which I have in my mind, 
let me say a few words suggested by the admi- 
rable response made by Mr. Justice Magruder to 
the toast of the Supreme Court. I think we 
have all known for years past that this Court 
was doing its work under great difficulties, occa- 
sioned by the division of the State into three 
grand divisions; but I doubt if we have ever 
until to-night realized the full extent of its em- 
barrassment, and of the burden put upon the 



I/O ADDRESSES. 

community by the present system. I regret ex- 
ceedingly to learn from the last speaker that the 
obstacles to consolidation are such as neither the 
Court, the Legislature, nor the people at large 
can remove ; but sooner or later the consolidation 
must be made, and I hope that some one will 
take enough interest in the matter to speak to 
Mr. Yerkes about it at once. I perceive that 
many of you are judges and the rest all leaders 
of the Bar; and so in addressing myself to the 
toast, I shall boldly assume that you have all 
heard of the common law of England, and of 
the manner in which we stole it from good King 
George more than a hundred years ago. At the 
same time we appropriated also the King's Eng- 
lish ; by which term I mean more especially that 
curious mixture of Latin and Saxon which by 
many generations of men, and with infinite pains, 
had been fashioned into the accepted phraseology 
of the law ; and ever since then we lawyers have 
gone on selling the Kings Law in the King's 
English, — old wine in old bottles, — and some- 
times, it is said, we have sold more bottle than 
the wine actually required. I know of nothing in 
this radical age quite so conservative as the law- 
yer's adherence to the antiquated verbiage of the 
law, in spite of the fact that it is largely non- 
essential. 

In former times, when a man's life, or the title 
to his property, might depend upon the spelling 



THE KING'S ENGLISH. 171 

of a Latin word, it was well to be cautious, 
and hardly possible to be too particular even 
with much repetition ; but to-day a man may 
convey his land by a few simple written words, 
and a lawyer may file a wrapper in court and 
amend it to suit his case ; and yet we go on com- 
pelling our clients to grant, bargain, sell, alien, 
remise, release, convey, and confirm their several 
pieces and parcels of land, with all the tenements, 
hereditaments, and appurtenances, rents, issues, 
and profits thereof, by formal documents with 
elaborate declarations and complicated covenants, 
and apparently for no other purpose than to im- 
press the ordinary mortal with the learning of 
our craft. So, if a client desires to bring suit 
upon a contract, we first set up the contract in 
substance, then substantially, with a change of 
punctuation, then in hcec verba, and conclude 
with the common counts, just as if we did n't 
know what the contract was or whether we had 
any contract at all, but hoped to hit the mark 
somehow if we put in enough shot. Now, if I 
had a clerk who insisted on putting a dozen 
stamps on each letter just because he had the 
stamps and wanted to be on the safe side, I 
should urge him to go and die ; and yet we re- 
gard with indifference the melancholy spectacle 
of young men trying to acquire the art of putting 
a dozen words in a two-word idea. 

If the breath wasted by the present generation 



172 ADDRESSES. 

of lawyers could be gathered into a single wind, 
it would polish the earth's surface smooth as the 
cheek of an apple. I know a single lawyer whose 
superfluous eloquence would furnish a fair sailing 
breeze. He has an automatic tongue and an 
inexhaustible reservoir of something which he 
calls argument ; and perhaps it is, but when he 
rises in court and turns himself on, the judge 
soon begins to think of a certain recent discovery 
in the vicinity of Pittsburg, and wonders how they 
manage down there when they want to shut off 
the illumination. 

In justice to the Bench it must be said that in this 
fault it does not rival the Bar. Judges will persist 
in repeating the time-honored formula, declaring 
that their only desire is to do right and administer 
the law impartially, but then, after all, there is 
sometimes a satisfaction in knowing what they are 
trying to do. The records of our courts, however, 
and even the rules of practice, lack somewhat the 
simplicity and brevity which would seem to befit 
them; as, for example, the familiar rule that if, 
after nulla bona returned, a testatum be entered 
upon the roll quod devastavit, a writ of inquiry 
shall be directed to the sheriff, and if, by inquisi- 
tion, the devastavit be found and returned, there 
shall issue a scire facias quare executio non de 
fropriis bonis, and if upon this the sheriff shall 
return scire feci, the executor or administrator 
may appear and traverse the inquisition. 



THE KING'S ENGLISH. 1 73 

But a change is coming. One after another 
the State legislatures have recently prescribed 
brief forms for conveyances, and about two-thirds 
of the States have adopted simpler systems of 
pleading and procedure. 

Of course some objection is made, and chiefly 
by the older lawyers. They say that the old 
forms have been scrutinized and expounded by 
Bench and Bar for a century or more, and made 
intelligible. But, after all, this does not prove 
their superior excellence. 

One might by long practice demonstrate the 
possibility of writing legibly with a fork, but it 
would not follow that a fork is the best pen to 
be had. 

It seems to me that to insist upon clear, concise, 
and direct statements, arguments, and pleadings, 
will be to put a premium upon those intellectual 
qualities and that mental training which alone can 
fit men for high places in the law. 

In a science which professes to deal with the 
substance of human acts and relations, useless 
words should be held to indicate a careless 
mind. 

Nor does it follow that the present intricate 
procedure of the courts insures certainty in the 
result. If you will permit me, I will illustrate this 
by the story of a certain lawsuit, the first of 
any magnitude in which I had the honor to 
be engaged. 



174 ADDRESSES. 

I was then reading law in an office in this city. 
In the same office was another youth who had 
just been admitted to the Bar. I will not name 
him, although he has since become eminent in 
the profession as general solicitor of the great 
Chewing Gum Trust, and other devouring mo- 
nopolies, and ought not to be sensitive about his 
first efforts. A client of the office had a goat. It 
was not a Cashmere goat, but a plain, unostenta- 
tious animal, — a sort of cow-goat, that gave milk 
for its board. And one day this goat was killed 
by a neighbor, and the owner desired to bring 
suit for damages. The grown-up lawyers in the 
office hesitated to undertake the case, as they 
had never made a specialty of goat cases, and 
were suspicious of the animal under any circum- 
stances ; and so my friend and I offered our ser- 
vices and devoted ourselves to the construction of 
the declaration according to our somewhat im- 
mature theories of pleading. As the killing was 
clearly tortious, we commenced with a count in 
case ; then, as the goat had gone to that " bourne 
from which no traveller returns," — gone to be set 
off against a sheep in the final decree of partition, 
and could not be restored in specie, — we drew a 
count in trover, setting up that our client had 
casually lost, and that the defendant had casually 
found, the said goat, and had converted her, and 
thereby become liable for the value of the unre- 
generate animal before conversion. 



THE KING'S ENGLISH. 175 

Then, upon the theory of an implied promise 
to pay for the goat, we added a count in assump- 
sit, and finally, as a matter of precaution, added 
the common counts for labor and material, mon- 
eys expended, etc. The defendant's attorney, a 
hard, technical man, utterly devoid of sympathy, 
and without compunction for the goat, demurred 
to our declaration, and after he had got it trimmed 
down to suit his taste, filed a set of pleas which 
seemed to me at the time to be somewhat incon- 
sistent. He pleaded that the plaintiff never had 
a goat; that the plaintiff's goat died a natural 
death ; that the goat committed suicide ; that the 
defendant killed the goat in self-defence ; that the 
defendant had paid for the goat; then he pleaded 
set-off, estoppel, the Statute of Frauds, and the 
general issue. Of course we took leave to reply 
double to each plea, and so the record grew; 
and when that case went to the jury, though I 
never could understand just how it happened, 
there was n't any goat in it at all, and the defend- 
ant recovered judgment against our client for an 
old wheelbarrow that we never had heard of be- 
fore. This case may serve to show how justice 
may be mangled by her own machinery. And if 
we turn to Chancery we shall find about the same 
state of affairs. 

If I meet a man on the street and he charges 
me with having robbed him by some breach of 
trust, I simply call him Ananias, he retorts that 



I76 ADDRESSES. 

I am a thief, and the issue is made up, and is 
clear, simple, and unmistakable ; but if he carries 
the matter into court, his solicitor files a long bill 
in which he flatters the Court, proclaims his 
client an orator, and then proceeds in a dozen 
pages to recite my many wrongful acts ; insinuates 
that sometimes I pretend one thing and some- 
times another ; declares that he well hoped I 
would do the fair thing, and is grievously dis- 
appointed in me ; protests that the law is power- 
less to remedy such wrongs as his ; and asks the 
Court to give him such relief as he may choose 
to pray for, and such further relief as the Court 
may consider handy to have in such a case. Then 
I take my turn, and after saving and reserving 
unto myself all benefit and advantage of excep- 
tion to the many errors, uncertainties, and imper- 
fections in the said bill contained, for answer 
thereunto, or unto so much and such parts there- 
of as I am advised by counsel are necessary or 
material to be answered unto, answering say that 
in each of complainant's allegations, in turn, he 
is purposely and maliciously mistaken; and 
finally, having fully answered the bill and denied 
" all and all manner of unlawful combination and 
confederacy, without this, that there is any other 
matter, cause, or thing in the complainant's said 
bill of complaint contained, material or necessary 
to be answered unto, and not herein and hereby 
well and sufficiently answered, confessed, traversed, 



THE KING'S ENGLISH. 1 77 

and avoided or denied, is true to the knowledge 
or belief of this defendant," and having offered 
to prove the truth of my statements, I pray to be 
dismissed with costs. 

Then comes the complainant again with a gen- 
eral refutation that no man can calmly under- 
stand, and no set of men can parse ; and finally 
the judge sends the whole case to his Master to 
tell him what he ought to do about it. 

Yet it is true that in spite of its loitering by the 
way the Court of Chancery seldom fails to reach 
its goal. 

Let me illustrate its method by a single in- 
stance. Some years ago a certain widow of this 
city opened a home for salaried young men. 
She was plain, but self-supporting, and before 
long one of the young men offered his hand and 
heart and was not repulsed ; so for some time he 
continued to enjoy her society and table free of 
expense. But when she grew impatient and 
began to name days in the near future, he basely 
changed his plans and his boarding-house, and 
she promptly called upon her solicitor. 

That gentleman filed a bill in Chancery setting 
up the promise and the breach thereof, the be- 
trayal of his client's trust and confidence, and the 
fact that there was no adequate remedy at law, 
inasmuch as defendant was impecunious, and for- 
asmuch as the widow had made up her mind to 
trust the tyrant man just once more, and insisted 

12 



1^8 ADDRESSES. 

on doing so, and therefore praying for a decree 
of specific performance. The chancellor, whom 
I will not name (neither will I deny that it was 
Judge Moran) had a tender regard for the sex 
and a boundless belief in the jurisdiction of his 
Court, and he promptly decreed that defendant 
marry the complainant within ten days. 

It was then discovered that the defendant, with 
singular discretion, had left the country. Now, 
our Court of Chancery is not easily balked in the 
execution of its decrees. It does not depend 
upon the willingness of the defendant to obey its 
commands ; and in this case the judge simply 
added to the decree, " and it appearing to the 
Court that the said defendant had departed from 
this State, and from the jurisdiction of this Court, 
it is hereby ordered and decreed that AB, Master 
in Chancery of this Court, do forthwith marry the 
complainant, and that he report his proceedings 
in the premises to this Court at the next term 
thereof." 

All of which shows clearly how justice may be 
done without any inconvenience to any one. 



POSTERITY. 

Delivered at the Banquet in Honor of Chauncey M. 
Depew in Chicago on June 6, 1890, in Response to 
the Toast of "Posterity." 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — Without 
being in the confidence of its promoters, I 
venture to guess that this pleasant affair was 
designed as an opportunity to convince our 
distinguished guest that in spite of his recent 
hallucination we love him still. In the matter 
of magnanimity Chicago is simply spectacular. 
A man may dream of fairer cities and more 
central centres of the world; but if he wake 
with eyes wide open to the light, she will take 
him to her heart as if he had never doubted 
her. 

But if it be the object of this meeting merely 
to solace the sorrow of our now regenerate friend 
over the only mistake he ever made, and inci- 
dentally to betray our own greatness of soul, 
why should we look beyond this happy hour 
of reconciliation, and why should I be called 
upon to talk about posterity? Well, possibly 
because that which we are doing to-day and 



l8o ADDRESSES. 

are about to do must be of interest to those 
who follow us ; perhaps because we realize that 
we have talked too long about the debts we 
owe to dead men, and might as well begin to 
think of what we owe to the generations yet 
unborn. 

It 's easy to admit indebtedness to those who 
cannot call for payment. It 's cheap and safe to 
sound the praises of those who have passed for- 
ever from the lists of rivalry. Even doctors ad- 
mit that angel doctors knew a thing or two on 
earth, and even our sparkling toastmaster will 
acknowledge that Shakespeare was talented. 

But that which comes to us as heirs of yester- 
day we hold as trustees for to-morrow, and to- 
morrow will claim a reckoning. 

Now I don't propose to discuss the whole sub- 
ject assigned to me by your committee. I should 
not feel bound to do so without some agreement 
for a salary and a summer vacation. 

But let me say a few words about the interest 
of my client, posterity, in the present occasion 
and the near future of Chicago. Of course I 
don't mean all human beings of the future tense, 
for observation tells us that posterity is the nat- 
ural product of every clime, and much of it we 
cannot strictly call our own even for the pur- 
pose of argument. I refer only to the favored 
millions who shall inherit this Western world. 
Surely they have some part and interest in the 



POSTERITY. l8l 

history of to-day. Our acts performed are facts 
immutable by gods or men, and pass into the 
pride or shame of generations yet to be. By 
the strict logic of events there is nothing, how- 
ever trivial, which goes to make or mar the 
character of men, or peoples, or states, or cities, 
but passes on, a help or hindrance to the race 
forever. 

Now these general observations may possibly 
remind you of something heard before. They 
don't impress me as altogether novel, but I 
have made them for the special application they 
have to the present day and even to this precise 
occasion ; for it happens that we speak to-night 
right into the open ear of posterity. Our daz- 
zling toastmaster, a gentleman of whom it may 
be said that his faults are lonely and his virtues 
overcrowded, is engaged in writing a history of 
Illinois for future generations, and incidentally in 
making sure of a good audience. 

In that veracious narrative he will doubtless 
tell with his accustomed grace and usual accu- 
racy how, May 5, 1889, at the Grand Pacific 
Hotel, he presided over this banquet, how it was 
given in honor of one who began life as a 
humble railroad president and rose to dizzy 
heights of statesmanship, and might with prac- 
tice have become an after-dinner speaker; and 
the boys of the twentieth century will be content 
to start out as railroad presidents and work their 



1 82 ADDRESSES. 

way up. He will tell how sundry gentlemen, 
selected for their easy command of all human 
knowledge, their personal beauty, and good- 
natured willingness to suffer on festive occasions, 
discussed subjects of the first magnitude and 
disposed of national problems with neatness and 
despatch; and posterity will read the story 
and rejoice in us ancestors. 

But there is one other matter of which I 
thought to speak to-night. After what has been 
said here it seems useless to attempt further con- 
cealment of the fact that we are soon to hold the 
World's Fair in or near Chicago. 

The exact spot has not yet been selected, and 
may not be this week. I trust that the Directors 
are favored with liberal suggestions on this point, 
as I understand they intend to suit everybody, if 
everybody will but kindly and with reasonable 
diligence express a preference. 

Now, unhappily, my client, posterity, cannot 
communicate directly with the Board, having 
been excluded from the mails by order of our 
good Postmaster-General, on the ground that 
posterity advertises marriage, which is a lottery, 
and so it sends a message by me. 

As to the exact site, my clients, if I may 
assume that posterity will be plural, are not par- 
ticular. They will not attend the Fair in per- 
son. So they speak without the bias of personal 
convenience, and have but this to say: that any 



POSTERITY. 183 

site will suit them which shall be known there- 
after as the field of Chicago's victory ; and if the 
Directors desire to go down the ages in full 
plumage, they will do well to give heed to this 
suggestion. 

You men of to-day have undertaken a mighty 
work, and not altogether at your own risk. You 
hold the Fair, and posterity takes what is left, — 
the consequences of success or failure ; the good 
or bad name which shall be given to this City of 
Chicago. It is possible, of course, that — to use a 
bit of Boston slang — you have severed more 
than you can masticate; but I don't believe it. 
I believe with all my heart that Chicago will 
keep her pledges to the world and yet undo the 
meanest, even as she has already won the fairest 
of her critics. The other day I met a young per- 
son who had been born of wealthy parents some- 
where between Brooklyn and Jersey City, and had 
naturally grown up into the ef^gy of an English- 
man, — a curious creature with a stuffed heart and 
a head so plastic that a good breeze would blow 
it out of shape ; and this gifted being predicted 
that we should fail because the best people will 
not come here, at least during the London season ; 
and, besides, he knew lots of Chicago fellows, and 
we were rum chaps, but awfully " bad form." 
Well, it may be so, for I have heard that rum 
goes to the head ; and, as to " form," we have 
seen some men who have it to distraction; but 



1 84 ADDRESSES. 

they are not the men for real and great 
emergencies. 

Let us have done with idle contention about 
the niceties of form. Unless Chicago shall be 
swallowed by the earth, or blown away, or burned 
up, or withered by another criticism from New 
York, the next generation of men will find her 
grown to proportions which by comparison will 
make her present state seem embryonic. Give 
to posterity the city of material prosperity, of 
accumulated wealth, of undaunted enterprise and 
the fixed habit of success, and let her coming 
citizens accept the challenge of older communi- 
ties in the fields of culture and the arts. We 
have no business with such questions yet. What 
half-grown girl ever yet surpassed the grace and 
symmetry of womanhood? What city ever yet 
builded herself so broad and high in half a cen- 
tury, and in that time acquired the atmosphere of 
ages? I am sick of this cant about municipal 
aesthetics. When Chicago expelled the Indian 
and the wolf from her chosen site, she had within 
her the promise and potency of all that the world 
demands of her to-day, and she has known it 
passing well ; but she was not exempt from the 
natural laws by which great states and cities 
grow. Before her stretched the iron age of hard 
and homely toil, of uncouth manners and all the 
stubborn harshness of crude energy, — a long 
hard age, but none too long and none too hard 



POSTERITY. 185 

if in the end it brightens into a golden rather 
than a merely gilded age. A bearded fool may- 
sneer at the smooth cheek of the boy, but that 
ought not to bring a blush upon it ; for it is 
Nature's wise way to build up bone and muscle 
and give the man his stature before the orna- 
ments of manhood. I should doubt the lusty 
vigor of Chicago if she, in her youth, already 
showed the signs of age. 

And now let me conclude my message with 
reference to the Fair. Posterity will demand of 
you nothing less than the glory of success. 
Chicago has boldly claimed and fairly won the 
honor of standing for America before the world, 
and with that honor comes a serious obligation 
that might well appall so young a city. But she 
has craved the honor and courted the penalty. 
Now let her go to work. Let the same indomi- 
table will that raised her from the swamp and 
again from the ashes of destruction hold her 
steadfast now. Let her not count the cost too 
closely, or buy a failure with $10,000,000, if 
$20,000,000 will insure success. Let her draw on 
posterity for the round sum that the future ought 
to pay from its inheritance, and if the draft shall 
be the token of success, it will be honored. 



YALE IN THE WEST. 

Delivered at the Yale Alumni Banquet in New York 
on January 20, 1893, in Response to the Toast of 
"Yale in the West." 

WHEN a Chicago man is permitted to asso- 
ciate upon terms of equality with the 
polished representatives of an older and higher 
civilization, there is nothing so becomes that man 
as modest stillness and humility. This is a propo- 
sition in etiquette which, I believe, is not disputed 
anywhere east of the Alleghenies ; and if I shall 
seem to disregard it this evening, it is not because 
I deny it, or forget the many admonitions of the 
last year or two, but simply because the gracious 
invitation of your committee seems to imply a 
brief suspension of the ordinary rule of inter- 
course which you have established. 

Let me thank you, gentlemen, for this evidence 
of your kindly interest, and express the hope that 
it betokens a growing catholicity of spirit, a 
deeper concern for all sorts and conditions of 
men. The fact is that we have been so chastened 
by New York ever since St. Louis withdrew her 
counsel that we have become painfully sensitive, 



YALE IN THE WEST. 1 87 

and a little act of kindness touches us in a way 
you pampered and flattered autocrats can hardly 
understand. We have done wrong, we admit, 
but we did not know any better; and we do not 
want to be utterly condemned and treated as 
quadrupeds forever. We did n't suppose that 
you would object to pork -packing at such a dis- 
tance, where it could not come between the wind 
and your nobility; you ought to have told us 
before we became dependent on that industry for 
our living and the sinews of our best society. 
We never supposed that you would consider it 
impertinent in us to grow. You should have 
told us betimes. And when a little while ago 
Chicago picked up what seemed a pretty bauble, 
and hung it about her neck in childish glee, she 
did n't dream that it was yours. Why did n't you 
label your millstone? 

Of course, life in Chicago, as compared with 
your butterfly existence, has its disadvantages. 
I do not know that I can better illustrate this than 
by reading an extract from one of your journals, 
which sometimes evinces a certain critical inter- 
est in Chicago : — 

" At every grade-crossing death awaits the unfortunate 
sojourner in Chicago. Submersion in the streets, the 
deliquescence of the whole town in the quicksands upon 
which it sags, the blackness of the smoke above and the 
blackness of the deeper Chicago underneath, water 
filtered through sewage, and the twitchings of remorse 



1 88 ADDRESSES. 

for inability to comprehend David Swing and Dr. Harris 
on Shakespeare and Dante, make existence very miser- 
able to thousands of Chicagoans." 

Now let me read another extract from the same 
journal/descriptive of a day in New York: — 

" The free lunches furnished by the hotels and saloons 
on New Year's were more elaborate this year than ever 
before, but the finest spreads furnished without cost to 
the consumer were given by the proprietors of the res- 
taurants and saloons near the exchanges on Saturday. 
One saloon in New Street not only furnished free 
champagne and an elaborate luncheon, but also pro- 
vided an orchestra and an imitator of Lottie Collins, to 
entertain all who came. The proprietor of another 
saloon gave a set banquet of eight courses and six kinds 
of wine to his patrons. Free champagne, champagne 
punch, and champagne cup, as well as the most delicate 
viands, could be obtained in any of the leading restau- 
rants and saloons near the stock or produce exchanges." 

You see that with us, while the opportunities 
of life are limited, the opportunities of death are 
superabundant. The Chicago man who by- 
chance survives to-day will start out to-morrow 
with his choice of alternatives. He may either 
be minced at a grade crossing, or break through 
the pavement and go gurgling down the depths 
of deliquescent putridity, or take a glass of sew- 
age and die of nausea. Compare these with your 
alternatives of champagne, champagne punch, 



YALE IN THE WEST. 1 89 

and champagne cup, and have compassion upon 
us. Really, you seem to revel in the favors of 
Providence; but do not forget that whom the 
Lord loveth he chasteneth. 

But your chairman has told you that I would 
speak of Yale in the West, and I am inclined to 
lead up to that subject by the consideration of a 
single Yale man, whom some of you may know, 
as he sometimes appears in the West. We have 
adopted him as " Our Chauncey," — you know 
we all have to take our chances, — and we are 
somewhat surprised that he should be so little 
known at home. We fancy that if you could 
draw him out a little, as we do, you 'd get to like 
him. He comes out West occasionally to look 
up a President, or give the Fair a boost, or find a 
good dinner with fresh ears, and we always give 
him a banquet ; and he sits down with us to our 
homely fare as if pork and beer were the particu- 
lar things that make life worth living. He says 
he likes to dine where he can get his coat off and 
do his own reaching; that when he goes out to 
public dinners at home he gets but one dish at a 
time, and then has to listen to a lot of speeches 
by amateurs. You see, when he is with us, we 
divide the labor otherwise, and he does the talk- 
ing — and does it cheerfully. He tells us on such 
occasions how much he likes us, and how sorry 
he is that his duty to a lot of men who hold stock 
in him keeps him in the East. He says he had 



190 ADDRESSES. 

rather sit down to a dinner of herbs with us than 
eat stalled oxen with others ; and that Chicago is 
the only city in the world where a Christian cannot 
make anything by dying. He's very popular 
with us, and even in the remote fringe of Chicago 
which is called the far West. Out in the Yellow- 
stone country they have named a fine geyser 
after him; and, by the way, it seems to have 
stimulated the geyser. 

But what of those other Yale men who are 
part and parcel of the West, and of the influence 
which, through them, Yale is exerting in that 
country? It goes without saying that in Chicago, 
where manliness means more than culture and 
water, and man cannot live by pedigree alone, 
Yale is the popular university. Of course, there 
are those among us who insist that Harvard is 
the nicer college, — such ladies may be found 
anywhere, — and some who protest that Prince- 
ton is the only bulwark that can save us from the 
loss of hell; but to the typical Chicago boy, who 
is apt to be a little careless of his accent and 
rather sanguine in his theology, the name of Yale 
is very potent. The fact is, that the Harvard 
alumni are becoming too intensely aesthetic. Just 
after the last meeting of the colleges at Spring- 
field, where Yale played football in the presence 
of Harvard, the Harvard alumni in Chicago held 
their annual banquet, and one of them, telling me 
of it the next day, mentioned the fact that during 



YALE IN THE WEST. \g\ 

the whole evening not a word was said about 
football ; so I say they are becoming too purely 
intellectual in their interests. Now, with the 
Princeton men it was different. They had a din- 
ner just after the game of last Thanksgiving Day, 
and they had a good deal to say of the affair ; 
that is, their chaplain thanked the Lord that their 
beloved institution had been spared for another 
year of usefulness. 

The college-bred men of the West have become 
an army, and they are doing service in the 
centers and in the outposts of civilization. They 
are the regulars in a vaster army. They are 
furnishing officers to the militia in the great cam- 
paign against wrong and want and ignorance and 
crime, and the thousand nameless shapes of ani- 
malism. They are directing the tendencies of 
exuberant life and restless energy. They are " a 
power that makes for righteousness." And they 
are loyal to the West. You may have observed 
this ; and I suppose there is nothing that amuses 
you more than, for instance, a Chicago mans 
faith in Chicago. It is amusing, of course, — 
almost as funny as a New Yorker's pride in Lon- 
don, and really quite as commendable. He's a 
queer fellow, this Western cousin of yours, but not 
such a bad sort of fellow, after all. There 's some- 
thing in his bumptious, belligerent local pride 
that irritates the nerves of Eastern men; and 
when the spirit of brag is upon him, no such light 



192 ADDRESSES. 

artillery as the canons of taste will stop him. In 
that mood he would describe the stock yards to 
Ward McAllister. And yet — he has his good 
points. He has, for instance, the habit of self- 
dependence. He is rarely the victim of congen- 
ital wealth, and seldom bows down to family 
names. He holds that the merely rich ought to 
be humble, and grasps the strong hand, the will- 
ing and open hand, without thinking of manicures. 
There 's an oxygen in his atmosphere that quick- 
ens his senses. He sees things large ; he hears 
the voices of to-morrow ; he tastes in hope the 
flavor of success ; he feels in his own veins the 
pulse of a people, and that is the sort of madness 
that works miracles in this age. He lacks the 
graces of life lived in hereditary mansions, but he 
is yet fresh from the ancestral cabin. He is 
somewhat uncouth, perhaps ; but he cuts his coat 
to the measure of the man he means to be, and 
some day it will fit him. He 's too busy just now 
to stop and meditate on the niceties of form ; but 
don't blame him for that, for, after all, the ques- 
tions of taste are not as yet the most pressing 
problems of his life. He 's doing with all his 
might the things that must be done, and working 
out a result to be proud of. You are proud of it 
to-day. You know you are. You are not per- 
niciously active in showing it just at present, but 
that doesn't signify; and very soon the whole 
world will be invited to glow with the same pride ; 



YALE IN THE WEST. 193 

for I take it that the people who visit this coun- 
try next summer will not repeat the mistake of 
Columbus and stop at the first island they come 
to and think they have seen the whole of America, 
even though that island should be this fairest and 
proudest of all her possessions. 



13 



CHICAGO. 

Delivered at the Banquet in Honor of Daniel H. 
Burnham, in New York, on March 25, 1893, IN 
Response to the Toast of "Chicago." 

NOTHING could be more gratifying to a 
Chicago man than this noble tribute to 
Mr. Burnham ; and not merely because he be- 
longs to Chicago and Chicago is proud of him, 
but because, also, the work which he has done so 
well, and which now elicits your admiration, is 
largely her work. You cannot honor him be- 
yond his just deserts ; and you will not spoil him 
by approbation. It may be said of him, as was 
said of another, that he has earned his fame by 
the arduous greatness of things done ; and such 
men are not stupefied by applause. It never 
did hurt a Daniel to be lionized. And in honor- 
ing him you testify your appreciation of that lib- 
eral spirit which has permitted him to enlist in the 
great work over which he has presided, without 
regard to local pride or sectional jealousies, the 
men who best express the constructive and artistic 
genius of the age. Those marvelous palaces 
which, untenanted, would justify a convocation of 



CHICAGO. I95 

the nations, are monuments not only to the skill 
of architect and artist, but also to the bold spirit 
and clear prevision of the men who dared to set 
the scale of such a work. 

This is indeed a new sensation for Chicago. 
Hitherto she has received from this quarter full 
recognition of her claims as a pork, beef, and 
grain market, and scant courtesy to her aspira- 
tions for art and culture ; and that now, in this 
city of accomplishments, her chosen representa- 
tive should receive the plaudits of the very 
elect for his services to art, is at least a sweet 
surprise. 

But this makes easy and agreeable the duty 
which is assigned to me. I come, in the friendli- 
est mood, to offer consolation for any disappoint- 
ments which may have resulted from the location 
of the Fair. If you will kindly recall the spirited 
controversy over that question, you will remem- 
ber that New York signified a willingness. She 
did not really want the Fair, of course, — for she 
has said so since, — but she certainly assumed a 
wistful expression ; and when the matter was 
settled she did not see the hand of Providence in 
it, and had her doubts about the wisdom of the 
choice, — doubts which she did not regard as 
confidential. Chicago, of course, was elated. 
She was a good deal smaller then, and it pleased 
her to be treated as a large city ; and she swelled 
up and said the size of the job was quite im- 



196 ADDRESSES. 

material; and now, like the man who won the 
elephant in the raffle, she rejoices that it is no 
bigger. 

But I am not going to discuss that question 
here. A few months longer, and the wisdom or 
the folly of that selection will be evident to all 
the world. I mean but to call attention to the 
silver lining of your cloud. There are certainly 
some advantages in not having a World's Fair, 
and probably no one is better qualified to point 
them out than a Chicago man. Once upon a 
time, up in Fishkill, there was a lady of most 
expensive tastes, who had two suitors. She mar- 
ried one, and the other moped. One day the 
husband met his disappointed rival and said to 
him, " My dear sir, experience teaches me that 
you are a happy man." 

Chicago was happy once, but she overlooked 
the fact. She undertook a World's Fair, and 
now she knows what happiness was. True happi- 
ness consists largely in what you don't have. 
There was once a fox who was pursued by a lot 
of dogs and horses and others, and as he paused 
to listen for the hounds upon his track, he re- 
marked to himself that he would be much happier 
if he had n't a scent. Let me commend this sage 
reflection to your care-hunted millionaires, and 
suggest that if you will come and spend the 
summer in Chicago you may easily test the 
theory of that subtle fox. 



CHICAGO. 197 

And that recalls me to my theme. Just think 
of the expectant hosts that will descend upon 
that city. We don't mind the New Yorkers 
so much, for they won't expect anything of 
us, and the slightest gentility will give them a 
pleasant surprise. They will look to find our 
streets paved with good intentions, and ordinary 
mud will be a relief to them. But what will 
Boston say, — Boston, who writes to us by way of 
Albany that she is disappointed in New York? 
And Philadelphia, who had a little trouble of her 
own, — what won't she say? And then suppose 
we have a flock of crowned heads from over 
the water. You would not mind such a thing at 
all. You are accustomed to treat princes and 
potentates with an easy condescension that fas- 
cinates them ; but we are lowly born and bashful ; 
and while we sympathize with kings and queens 
and mean to treat them " square," we lack the 
tact which enables you to check undue familiarity 
without a club. I suppose we shall need some, 
and if so we shall " stock up," for we propose to 
have whatever is essential to correct hospitality. 
It 's probably a good thing to have, anyway ; for 
tact is something which, like the odor of onions, 
clings to a man even unto the third and fourth 
generation, and it may help the children some 
day. 

But aside from such embarrassments, and others 
which you will readily foresee, there are cer- 



I98 ADDRESSES. 

tain responsibilities which you escape. If the 
Fair should prove to be a great success, it will 
be the glory of the whole Nation. If it fail, alas 
for Chicago ! None will dispute her title to the 
blame. Perhaps Congress, which has already as- 
sisted her with half a donation less the drawback, 
would pass a pension bill for the relief of those 
who had been ruined in the service of their coun- 
try ; but undoubtedly the President, following the 
example of himself, would veto that bill, and we 
should be left to do our own suffering, and he 
would probably get a third term. However, we 
must not complain. Such are the penalties of 
greatness. These dizzy heights are dangerous. 
It's a more serious matter to fall from a pedestal 
than from a ditch. 

But, above all, New York is to be congratu- 
lated upon a rare opportunity to show the great- 
ness of her soul. She is our foremost city. Even 
excluding New Jersey and Long Island, she is still 
one of the two largest cities in the country. She 
is the pride of the whole Nation, and, by the way, 
she is not so stupid as to be wholly unconscious 
of her own superiority. Even Rome, in all her 
glory, with sevenfold her opportunity, did not 
surpass her. She sat upon her seven hills and 
never hatched a President. 

But, after all, there's a good deal of America 
over there on the mainland ; and it 's looking this 
way. It has been said that New York is insular, 



CHICAGO. 199 

self-centered, indifferent to all things off the island. 
Will it appear so in the coming season of national 
pride and patriotic effort ? This gathering to- 
night and the words spoken here go far to reassure 
us. It is Chicago's misfortune that, no matter 
how unselfishly she may strive for the success of 
the Fair, half the world will find her motives 
wholly mercenary. It is New York's good fortune 
that her help and sympathy cannot be misinter- 
preted. Let me commend this thought to you ; 
and let me add that with a view to your future 
happiness we cordially invite you to be good to us. 
It is not merely that we need your practical aid 
for the Fair, — of course we need that, — but that 
the men who have sacrificed so much in the cause 
that is your cause and that of every citizen should 
have a generous support. I do not speak by their 
authority. They are not asking for commenda- 
tion ; they are not waiting for encouragement ; 
but they would be strange ■ men not to be stimu- 
lated by your appreciation and grateful for a 
hand outstretched in kindliness. 

And you have this further consolation, that 
you have escaped the dust and din of preparation, 
and will first see the Fair complete. It will be 
a sudden, full sensation. You will see in all 
its finished beauty what poets and artists have 
vaguely dreamed, and in that sight will be a 
revelation of the real sublimity of man's concep- 
tions and the possible majesty of his handiwork. 



200 ADDRESSES. 

I care not in what spirit you may come. Bring 
but the common sentiment of men, and that first 
view will print a picture on your memories that 
time will not efface. 

And then, too, you will see Chicago, — the most 
interesting city in the world to one who studies 
the evolution of cities. Elsewhere the phases of 
developments have succeeded each other too 
slowly to be noted except in part through the 
imperfect medium of history. There the changes 
have come so rapidly within the field of view that 
the entire process may be seen. The whole mar- 
velous transformation, from the trading post to 
the chosen theatre of a world's pageant, has come 
within the range of single lives yet far from spent. 
We look back to find the origin and explanation 
of Chicago in those forces which fixed the natural 
highways of a vast and fertile territory. We see 
her now, a field of prodigious activities, a marvel 
of brilliant achievement, a turbulent school of 
sociology. It has fallen to this generation to 
see the elements of society in violent agitation ; 
and just now the storm-center seems to be over 
Chicago. What the result may be let him declare 
who knows the scope of wisdom and the limita- 
tions of folly. We only know that in that city men 
are being molded by the pressure of events; 
that the incessant urgency of life, adding each 
day a little to the task of yesterday, a little also 



CHICAGO. 201 

to the strength of yesterday, is breeding a race of 
men fit for responsibilities; and that the same 
energy which has made her in half a century 
a great spectacular city, is now surely tending 
toward the better purpose of her life. 



"CATTING." 

Reprinted, by Kind Permission, from "Forest and 
Stream." 

IN the " Tennessee Fish Notes," by J. D. H., 
in the " Forest and Stream " of May 1 1, we are 
told that " Mr. Poole caught a yellow cat out 
of the river the other day, with ordinary tackle 
which weighed sixty-one pounds." 

It is to be regretted that the details of this 
affair are not given. It would be interesting to 
know how the cat happened to be in the river, — 
whether by accident or design; and all sports- 
men will be eager to know something more about 
the tackle used by Mr. Poole. It is said to have 
been the " ordinary tackle which weighed sixty- 
one pounds," and perhaps the Tennesseeans who 
devote themselves to this particular sport under- 
stand exactly what is meant; but in the North, 
where the cats found in water are generally too 
stale to entice the angler, the statement cannot 
fail to excite some speculation. The tackle, 
weighing only sixty-one pounds, could hardly 
have been a derrick or a dredging-machine, — 
although the latter would seem to be well adapted 
for the purpose, — and it was manifestly some- 



" CA TTINGr 203 

thing heavier than a rake, a scoop-shovel, or a 
pair of tongs. 

In view of the well-known predilection of cats 
for live bait, it may have been a big dog on a 
string, or a mouse suspended on a log-chain, 
according as it is customary in such cases for the 
bait to take the game or for the game to take 
the bait. It certainly seems probable that in a 
stream well stocked with cats, a small water- 
spaniel — say a brown hackle — on a light cast- 
ing-line and fly-rod would afford excellent sport. 
Such tackle need not weigh over thirty pounds. 
Mr. Poole seems to have used a larger dog than 
was necessary. The smaller-sized would be 
better for casting, and would make the contest 
more uncertain, and therefore more sportsman- 
like. 

Just how we are to induce the cats to take 
to the water in sufficient numbers to make this 
sport popular with the fishing fraternity may not 
be clear; but it is evident that the surplus kit- 
tens of our large cities, after being accustomed 
to city milk, cannot have any serious antipathy 
to the purer water of the pond and stream. 

Certainly this subject is worthy the careful 
attention of our fishculturists and sporting clubs. 
Just as we are beginning to realize and mourn 
over the rapid extermination of our game fish 
and animals, a new sport with an inexhaustible 
supply of material is at hand. 



204 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

Take, for example, a single block in New 
York, occupied by say one hundred house- 
holders. Each one of these would cheerfully 
spare a hundred cats from his neighborhood. 
This makes ten thousand cats to the block avail- 
able for our purpose; and of course there are 
plenty of dogs out of business who might thus 
be furnished with pleasant employment and a 
reason for existence. 

We hope to hear further from Mr. Poole on 
this interesting topic. 



THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN TO 
HIS OWN PROPERTY. 

Reprinted, by Kind Permission, from " Scribner's 
Magazine.' 

IT is quite beyond the purpose of this article to 
discuss the origin or development of the idea 
of property, or the history of the various conces- 
sions which the individual owner has been com- 
pelled to make to the public necessity. From 
time to time within the history of the common 
law, the people have secured for themselves safe- 
guards against the exactions of the government, 
until it has become the maxim of modern civili- 
zation that no citizen shall be deprived of life, 
liberty, or property, without due process of law; 
and from time to time the exigencies of society 
have compelled the surrender of individual prefer- 
ences, privileges, and rights to the needs of the 
government, or the community, until the citizen 
holds his property subject to the requirements of 
the State, and may not devote it to any use pre- 
judicial to the interests of the public, or, within cer- 
tain limits, tending to the injury of his neighbor. 



206 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

Thus, he may own a city lot, in that he may 
sell it and appropriate the proceeds to his own 
use, or give it to aid some benevolent object, or 
devise it to his family or friends, or build upon it 
some structure in which he may reside or conduct 
his business without payment of rent; but if he 
sell or devise, he must conform to laws regulating 
conveyances or wills, framed for the protection of 
titles; if he build, he must observe municipal 
ordinances designed to promote the public safety; 
if he occupy it, he must regard the health, com- 
fort, and property rights of his neighbors. He 
may claim protection by the law in the proper 
and peaceable enjoyment of his property ; but his 
property must pay its ratable share of the expense 
of maintaining order, and providing the conven- 
iences of urban life, under penalty of confiscation. 
The State cannot arbitrarily dispossess him and 
bestow his land upon another without compensa- 
tion ; but it may seize his property and apply it 
to the payment of his debts ; it may destroy his 
house to save others, or appropriate his land to 
public uses, upon payment of compensation to be 
determined by its legal machinery. 

At the present day it would be difficult to 
specify any class of property held by the private 
citizen, wholly exempt from the claims of the 
public as represented by the State. On the other 
hand, it would be painful to contemplate social 
conditions under which absolute rights of individ- 



THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 207 

uals could be maintained. The power to tax the 
citizen and his property is one which is granted 
of necessity to every State by its citizens, and is 
based upon theories of public necessity and the 
equitable distribution of the expenses of govern- 
ment. So long as it is exercised for a public 
purpose and with uniformity, according to the 
value of property, this power is limited only by 
the discretion of the legislature. The only secu- 
rity against wanton abuse of it is found in our 
representative form of government. Those who 
are chosen for their special fitness to represent 
the common interests of all ; who must suffer in 
their own estates the penalty of unwise or extrava- 
gant taxation ; who are responsible to their con- 
stituents for every dereliction of their sacred trust, 
and whose fair fame is, of course, dearer to them 
than the possible gains of official corruption, — 
such men will hardly abuse this tremendous power 
for personal advantage. 

This is the theory of our government, — that 
legislators and local officers will be inspired by 
zeal for the public welfare; and there is here 
and there an optimist who finds circumstantial 
evidence of this inspiration in the history of his 
own time — and party. In theory, as it is stated 
by eminent authority, rt the legislature cannot, in 
the form of a tax, take the money of the citizens 
and give it to an individual, the public interest or 
welfare being in no way connected with the trans- 



208 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

action." So, in theory, justices of the peace 
cannot grant divorces ; but a Western justice punc- 
tured this theory recently by the remark that he 
knew better — as he had granted several himself. 
This power with which the State is so liberally 
endowed is by it delegated, in part, to the muni- 
cipal and quasi-municipal corporations created 
for the administration of local government; 
though in some States the power of such corpo- 
rations to raise money by general taxation is 
limited to a certain percentage of the assessed 
value of property within the district of taxation ; 
but special assessments of property for local pub- 
lic improvements, which may be considered as a 
form of taxation, may be carried to such extent 
as may be required by public necessity or the 
local spirit of enterprise; provided only that the 
proposed improvement shall be of a public char- 
acter, and that the cost thereof shall be levied on 
lands according to the estimated benefit to be 
conferred, or, in some States, in cases of street 
improvement, according to frontage on the street. 
The legal machinery by means of which this 
power of taxation is exercised, is too complex for 
description here, even with reference to a single 
State ; but it may be said in general terms that it 
involves the assessment of values or special bene- 
fits, as the case may be, by an officer or board 
elected for that purpose; and that there is, in 
most States and cities, great scope for injustice 



THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 209 

by means of excessive and unequal assessments, 
as well as by extravagant and unnecessary ex- 
penditure of public money. 

When the extent of this power is considered, in 
connection with the opportunities for its abuse 
by incompetent or corrupt officers, it will be 
seen that the citizen's right to his " own " prop- 
erty falls somewhat short of absolute dominion. 

In addition to this power of taxation, there is 
inherent in every sovereignty the power to take, 
damage, or destroy the property of the citizen, in 
the interest of the public, by the exercise of that 
superior right of property known as the Eminent 
Domain. 

This power may be invoked for various objects, 
as for the construction of railroads, canals, public 
streets, roads and bridges, parks, water-works, 
ferries, drains, schoolhouses, cemeteries, mills, — 
in some States, — and other works of public neces- 
sity or convenience, upon condition that com- 
pensation shall be awarded and paid to the 
owner. In certain States it is provided by statute 
that the proper compensation shall be determined 
by a jury, and paid by the State or corporation 
seeking condemnation of property, before taking 
possession ; but this rule is not uniform, or essen- 
tial to the protection of the citizen. In several 
States the assessment or award is made by com- 
missioners appointed for the purpose, and pay- 
ment of compensation is not a condition precedent 

14 



210 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

to taking possession, the owner being remitted to 
his legal action to enforce payment. 

Thus the citizen must consider his property at 
all times as for sale to the city, if needed for 
streets or public grounds or buildings ; to a rail- 
road company if required for its purposes, or to 
such other of the several public corporations, 
permitted by the State to exercise the right of 
eminent domain, as may find it necessary or 
convenient ; and at a price to be fixed by a jury 
or commission, which is limited to the actual 
market value of the property in cash ; and in 
case of the interruption or destruction of his busi- 
ness, he may be awarded compensation for in- 
juries resulting directly from the condemnation, 
but not for others perhaps quite as real and 
serious, but not clearly demonstrable under the 
rules of evidence. 

Or, if his property be applied to any use, or 
occupied in any manner, declared by the legis- 
lature or the courts to be prejudicial to the pub- 
lic welfare, the " nuisance " so created may be 
abated by summary means and without compen- 
sation, even though it involve the destruction of 
buildings or render the property practically 
worthless by prohibition of the only use to which 
it is adapted. 

This "police power" of the State, as it is 
termed, is one of vast scope, and its limitations 
may not be readily defined. Indeed, certain 



THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 211 

recent opinions, emanating from courts of high 
authority, seem to warrant the definition of this 
power as the general authority of the legislature 
to supervise and control all business transacted 
within the State to such extent as it may deem 
expedient for the public good. 

In the year 1876 this question was presented 
to the Supreme Court of the United States, in 
various forms, by a series of appeals from State 
courts in what are known as the " Granger 
Cases ; " and we have but to examine the opin- 
ions filed in those cases, and certain later adjudi- 
cations by the same court, if we would escape 
the popular fallacy that a man really owns his 
own property. 

In 1871 the Legislature of Illinois defined and 
classified public warehouses, and fixed a maxi- 
mum rate to be charged for storage of grain. 
Certain private citizens of Chicago, who had 
erected extensive elevator buildings and were 
engaged as co-partners in carrying on the busi- 
ness of receiving and storing grain therein at the 
time of the enactment in question, failed to take 
out a license under the new law, or to comply 
with its provisions relating to rates of storage, 
and were prosecuted. This case necessarily pre- 
sented certain questions of great importance 
touching the right of the individual to the use 
and control of his own property. It was not the 
case of a corporation, to which had been given 



212 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

extraordinary powers to equip it for public ser- 
vice, and which was therefore subject to control 
by the public ; nor did it present any of those 
questions relating to the public health, safety, or 
morals, which would clearly justify the interven- 
tion of the police power of the State. The 
Supreme Court of Illinois, by a bare majority, 
held the law to be valid, although it was argued 
with great force on behalf of the warehousemen 
that it was unconstitutional, in that it operated to 
deprive them of their property without due pro- 
cess of law. The Supreme Court of the United 
States affirmed this decision by a majority opin- 
ion, in which it is expressly stated that the case 
has received long and careful consideration " on 
account of the vast importance of the questions 
involved." In that case the Court concluded 
from the facts of record that the proprietors of 
elevators in Chicago enjoyed a " virtual monop- 
oly " of a business which was of general interest 
and public character, and stated the law as appli- 
cable to the case in these words : " Property does 
become clothed with a public interest when used 
in a manner to make it of public consequence and 
affect the community at large. When, therefore, 
one devotes his property to a use in which the 
public has an interest, he, in effect, grants to the 
public an interest in that use, and must submit to 
be controlled by the public for the common good, 
to the extent of the interest he has thus created." 



THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 213 

This language has been severely criticised by 
lawyers and judges, and by none more severely 
than by the dissenting members of the Supreme 
Court. Mr. Justice Field says, in the same case : 
" If this be sound law, if there be no protection 
either in the principles upon which our republi- 
can government is founded, or in the prohibitions 
of the Constitution against such invasion of pri- 
vate rights, all property and all business in the 
State are held at the mercy of a majority of its 
legislature. The public has no greater interest 
in the use of buildings for the storage of grain 
than it has in the use of buildings for the resi- 
dences of families, nor, indeed, anything like so 
great an interest; and according to the doctrine 
announced, the legislature may fix the rent of all 
tenements used for residences, without reference 
to the cost of their erection. If the owner does 
not like the rates prescribed, he may cease renting 
his houses." 

In a series of railroad cases decided after the 
warehouse case, and in which the Court held that 
the legislatures of the several States might regu- 
late the rates to be charged by railroads for trans- 
portation of passengers and freight, and that, 
although the roads were entitled to reasonable 
compensation, the legislature alone could deter- 
mine what was " reasonable," Mr. Justice Field, 
in a dissenting opinion on behalf of himself and 
Mr. Justice Strong, remarks with reference to the 

) 



214 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

warehouse case, which the Court had followed as 
a precedent, that " that decision, in its wide sweep, 
practically destroys all the guaranties of the Con- 
stitution and of the common law invoked by 
counsel for the protection of the rights of the 
railroad companies ; " and again : " that decision 
will justify the legislature in fixing the price of 
all articles and the compensation for all services. 
It sanctions intermeddling with all business and 
pursuits and property in the community, leaving 
the use and enjoyment of property and the com- 
pensation for its use to the discretion of the legis- 
lature." It may be argued, of course, that the 
declaration of the Court in the warehouse case, 
so far as it applies to other classes of property 
than that directly in controversy in that case, may 
be regarded as a mere dictum ; but as it is a care- 
fully considered statement of the general prin- 
ciple on which the decision is based, and as the 
same Court has not seen fit to modify it materially 
in any of the later cases in which it has been dis- 
cussed and criticised, it must be taken as the de- 
liberate exposition, by our highest tribunal, of the 
relative rights of the public and the individual 
citizen to that which the latter is accustomed to 
call his own property. 

If it be the law of the land that the citizen who 
" devotes his property to a use in which the 
public has an interest," or enjoys a " virtual 
monopoly," must submit to be controlled by the 



THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 21 5 

public to the extent of its interest therein, and if 
even his right to a reasonable compensation for 
the use of his property or his services in connec- 
tion therewith mean nothing more than the right 
to receive whatever the legislature shall arbi- 
trarily declare to be a reasonable compensation, 
it is but a step — if at all — further to the doctrine 
that the public may also determine for itself, and 
finally, when property is " used in a manner to 
make it of public consequence and affect the 
community at large," or, in other words, when 
it, the public, " has an interest" therein; and 
then it may be said, in general terms, that a 
man's right to his property depends upon the 
will of the legislative majority. When we con- 
sider the infinite subdivision of labor, the inter- 
dependence of trades, professions, and all the 
business classes, and the complicated and deli- 
cately adjusted mechanism of that great modern 
engine called Commerce, it is really not easy to 
say what legitimate, well managed, and success- 
ful business may not be considered to be of 
" public consequence," or to " affect the com- 
munity at large," and therefore to be subject to 
public control. 

It is possible, of course, that the Supreme 
Court has gone no further than would be con- 
sistent with a proper theory of society, based 
upon modern conditions. On that question I 
shall venture no opinion. But, tested by the 



2l6 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

principles and precedents by which it professes 
to be guided, its language in this case seems to 
be singularly inaccurate, ■ — a fault not often to be 
found in its opinions, — and must inevitably tend 
to encourage usurpation by legislative majorities. 
There is, indeed, some indication of late that the 
Court perceives this, and is disposed to qualify 
its former doctrine. In a recent case, decided in 
March, 1890, a statute of Minnesota, enacted in 
1887, creating a railroad and warehouse commis- 
sion, and providing that all charges for transpor- 
tation " shall be equal and reasonable," and 
empowering the commission to compel a carrier 
to adopt such rates as the commission " shall de- 
clare to be equal and reasonable," without provid- 
ing for any hearing before the commission, was 
held to be unconstitutional, as depriving carriers 
of their property without due process of law. The 
question of the reasonableness of the rate charged 
is said by the Court to be " eminently a ques- 
tion for judicial investigation, requiring due pro- 
cess of law for its determination." This is clearly 
a modification of the doctrine laid down in the 
warehouse case and the " Granger Cases " already 
referred to, — so clearly that Mr. Justice Bradley, 
in a dissenting opinion, declares that it " prac- 
tically overrules " those cases, in which, he says, 
the governing principle was that the regulation 
of such rates, and the determination of their 
reasonableness, is strictly a legislative preroga- 



THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 217 

tive, and not a judicial one. In this case, more- 
over, the Court appears to modify somewhat its 
former views as to what constitutes the " prop- 
erty " of the citizen and the " deprivation " which 
is prohibited by the Constitution, except upon 
compensation and by due process of law ; but it 
has not greatly changed its doctrine concerning 
the " police power " of the State. It leaves wide 
open still the question as to what business may 
be subject to public control because of general 
interest to the community. Indeed, in a still 
later case, now popularly known as the " Orig- 
inal Package Case," three of the Associate Jus- 
tices unite in declaring that " the police power 
includes all measures for the protection of the 
life, the health, the property, and the welfare 
of the inhabitants, and for the promotion of good 
order and the public morals." 

Giving full force to the very comprehensive 
terms used by the Supreme Court, it would be 
safe to say that the property of the citizen is 
subject to such control by the public as the 
latter may be interested to exercise, but hazard- 
ous to attempt to define the classes of private 
property which are or may be clothed with such 
a public interest as to justify interference by the 
government. But for the fact that the Supreme 
Court must be presumed to understand the lan- 
guage of the country, in both its technical and 
ordinary acceptations, one might guess with some 



218 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

reason that it had been careless in stating the 
doctrine in question, and that its opinion in the 
warehouse case ought not to be taken as a pre- 
cedent, except in cases where property is devoted 
to a public service. Within this limitation the 
doctrine has since been extended to " grist " 
mills and waterworks. In the " Civil Rights 
Cases " it was said by Mr. Justice Harlan to be 
applicable to places of public amusement, since 
they are used in a manner to make them of pub- 
lic consequence and affect the community at 
large; but I am not advised of any case in 
which it has been applied to clergymen, under- 
takers, or certain others whose services affect the 
community. 

As to corporate property, courts and legisla- 
tures have left small room for discussion. If any 
stockholder needs to be further admonished of 
the fact that corporations are but creatures of the 
people, let him await the next judicial utterance 
on the subject. It will not be long delayed ; for 
just now the excellent doctrine of corporate sub- 
jection is in the prime of life, and asserts itself 
with frequency and vigor. The president of a 
well-known railway company recently published 
an article advocating the purchase and operation 
of railroads by the government. It was regarded 
by many as a grim jest ; but inasmuch as the gov- 
ernment has already assumed so largely the con- 
trol of their operation, the proposition of the 



THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 219 

stockholders, that the public should assume also 
the risk and expense of operating them, is not so 
obvious a joke as to pass without challenge. It 
should be observed, however, that the inconsis- 
tencies and excesses of the public, in its treat- 
ment of this subject, do not necessarily condemn 
the whole procedure. The old doctrine of the 
vested rights and sacred charters of corporations 
was founded on error, and came to be recognized 
as dangerous to interests far more important than 
the gains of stockholders. It was time for gov- 
ernment to realize that it had no right to abdicate 
its trust, — that it had no power to grant irrevo- 
cable privileges, as against the general welfare of 
the people. At present this newly awakened 
solicitude for the public weal seems likely to 
carry us beyond the bounds of temperate action ; 
but it cannot be that we, as a people, shall long 
ignore the folly of discouraging enterprise and 
intimidating capital by petty restrictions and 
unjust discriminations. We shall soon cease to 
regard corporations as the natural foes of good 
government. We may even come to regard the 
prevailing hostility to these agents of government 
as an oblique menace to the State itself, — espe- 
cially when expressed by combinations formed 
and maintained at the expense of the public. 

At the time when these words are written, the 
operations of a great Western railway are sus- 
pended because of a " strike ; " and this con- 



220 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

certed action of an army of employees is based 
upon the refusal of the railway company to dis- 
miss an efficient but unpopular superintendent. 
The public, which has been so eager to curb the 
rights of stockholders, who draw dividends from 
the business conducted on their capital, is in- 
different to the action of these employees who 
draw wages for their labor in the same business. 
If the corporation is held to strict performance 
of its duty as a public servant, should not its 
agents, who live upon its business, be held to 
some account, — at least for combinations made 
to obstruct a public service as a means to satisfy 
the personal grudge of a few individuals? 

There remains but one other right of the citi- 
zen, concerning his own property, to be consid- 
ered. He is permitted to give it away, under 
certain restrictions. During his lifetime he may 
bestow it gratis, except that he may not thereby 
impair the rights of his wife or creditors, or 
divest it of the burden imposed by the public ; 
and, dying, he may dispose of it by will, subject 
to similar charges, and, in some States, certain 
statutory rights of children, and succession taxes. 
Observing these proper conditions, the citizen 
may give away his property ad libitum ; and it 
has long been a matter of surprise and regret — 
at least, to the impecunious philosopher — that so 
few avail themselves of this privilege during their 
lifetime. The records of our courts teem with 



THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 221 

cases in which the intentions of testators have 
been defeated by legal technicalities invoked by 
greedy heirs ; and it would seem that this con- 
stantly recurring spectacle ought to deter men 
from confiding their property exclusively to 
courts for distribution. 

One may excuse the merchant who accumu- 
lates to gratify a commercial ambition, and uses 
his millions as fuel for legitimate enterprise, or 
the man of any class who seeks to assure the 
comfort of those dependent upon him; but for 
those men — not a few — who by inheritance or 
otherwise have acquired wealth far in excess of 
their proper need or the need of those to whom 
they owe the debts of kinship, and cling to it for 
the mere satisfaction of seeing it increase and 
feeling the sense of ownership, there ought to be 
no forgiveness on earth. At such men is aimed 
the last suggestion of this paper, — that the right, 
with reference to his own property, in which the 
citizen is least restrained, is the right to give it 
away; and that this right is of all the most 
precious to him who sees the just relation of 
property to human happiness. 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 

Reprinted, by Kind Permission, from " The Century 
Magazine." 

MR. F. MANDEVILLE JONES was slowly 
recovering from a fever, which had re- 
lented only after the doctors had given him up 
and his friends had begun to enumerate his good 
qualities; and in the seclusion of the sick-room 
he reflected long and seriously upon the life 
which he had been about to submit, as a closed 
record, for judgment. 

With keen introspection he sought out the 
flaws in his character, analyzing the motives of 
action, testing principles, and criticising the 
method and result of all his life. He was a 
bachelor of mature age and comfortable fortune, 
a fairly successful lawyer, of good social posi- 
tion, correct habits, and genial nature, — in short, 
a gentleman of parts and a most acceptable 
member of society. 

Thus, at least, he was rated by the world, and 
thus, in his casual moments of self-examination, 
he had been accustomed to regard himself. But 
now, solemnized by the recent near approach of 
death, and with new clearness of vision, he stud- 
ied the being that he had been and knew him- 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 22$ 

self for what he really was, — a dishonest man ; 
that is, conventional and insincere. 

He reviewed with impartial scrutiny his social 
relations, and was forced to admit that he had 
not spoken and lived the truth, — the real truth 
of his conscience. 

Day by day he had politely lied-, courteously 
repressed his real feeling, and amiably concurred 
in that which he knew to be false, until deception 
had become the unconscious habit of his life; 
and brooding over this unwelcome fact, he so 
magnified his fault that it assumed the propor- 
tions of a deadly sin, from which he must find 
deliverance at any cost. He resolved that with 
the return of strength he would enter upon a new 
life. He would in all things and at all hazards be 
simply true to himself and to the obvious prin- 
ciples of rectitude. 

He now clearly perceived that the bane of 
modern society is the affectation of feeling or 
sentiment, and that the so-called amenities of life 
are often hardly more than facile deceptions, 
serving merely to mitigate the harshness of hon- 
est facts ; and of course that the sin of society is 
but the prevalent fault of its individual members, 
and that all social reforms must originate with the 
individual. 

He realized that the duty to which he had 
resolved to devote himself would be exacting and 
difficult; but to shirk it for that reason would be 



224 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

unworthy of him regenerate. And again and 
again, during the long period of his convales- 
cence, he renewed his resolution and rehearsed 
the glories of his certain victory over the sins of 
duplicity, until he became an enthusiast, or per- 
haps a monomaniac, on the subject of truth as a 
rule of conduct, and longed for the field of 
action. Yet with all his zeal he intended to be 
reasonable. He would not gratuitously affront 
society by noisy declamation, or assert himself 
inopportunely or unchallenged. He would not 
give way to unworthy impulses simply because 
they were real ; but, on the other hand, he would 
not blink the truth according to his conscience, 
however unwelcome, whenever he should be 
properly put in evidence. 

After careful consideration of his physical con- 
dition and rate of improvement he was confident 
that by the opening of the new year, then close 
at hand, he would have quite regained his 
strength and be ready to resume his place in the 
social world ; and he would then resolutely take 
up the task of honest living. 

The eventful day arrived, and Mr. Jones sallied 
forth with two great resolutions ; whereof the 
major has been sufficiently indicated, and the 
minor may be guessed when it is known that 
he bent his steps toward the home of Miss Stella 
Van Riper. 

Mr. Jones belonged to that class of bachelors 



MR. JO X ESS EXPERIMENT. 225 

known as eligible. For some years he had pre- 
served his autonomy without apparent reason; 
and recent meditations upon the duty of man 
and the exceptional qualities of Miss Van Riper 
having shown him the error of his way, he had 
resolved to lose no time in gaining the right 
path, — which he fondly hoped to do by means 
of a frank declaration to this lady of the exact 
state of his feelings, in which, of course, he 
would state the whole truth and nothing but 
the truth. 

He was received on this occasion with that 
cordiality which Miss Van Riper always mani- 
fested toward gentlemen whose calls were fre- 
quent enough to indicate a probable purpose, 
and with perhaps a certain superadded warmth 
due to her considerable interest in him and con- 
sequent joy over his restoration to health and 
her society. 

After an hour of preliminary conversation, 
commencing with a recital by him of the inter- 
esting features of his recent illness, continued by 
the enumeration of similar cases, and ending 
with a polite but not extravagant avowal of the 
pleasure experienced in the renewal of their 
friendly intercourse, Mr. Jones found himself at 
the brink of opportunity and poised for the 
fateful plunge. 

Miss Van Riper, with a woman's quick percep- 
tion of great moments, assumed the attitude of 

IS 



226 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

genuine and yet not painful surprise, with the 
right hand somewhat conspicuous and easily- 
tangible. She had done this before, but never 
when she felt so sure of her emergency. Mr. 
Jones, having mentally renewed his vow of abso- 
lute sincerity in all things, thus proceeded : — 

" Miss Van Riper, I desire to speak with you 
upon a personal subject of great, and I trust 
mutual, interest; and at the outset let me assure 
you that I shall permit no enthusiasm or fervor or 
habit of hyperbole to carry me beyond the limits 
of exact truth and perfect sincerity, for I am 
resolved that simple honesty shall be henceforth 
my constant rule of action. 

" You cannot have failed to observe that marked 
preference which I have shown, of latter years, 
for your society. Indeed, I am conscious that at 
sundry times I have given you more or less ex- 
plicit assurances of my special regard. Doubt- 
less some of these may have been accentuated by 
the too common tendency to extravagant lauda- 
tion of your sex, and should be qualified by that 
consideration; but, however that may be, the 
main fact of personal esteem remains." 

Here he hesitated, and Miss Van Riper, being 
restrained by no vow, remarked that she must say 
that he had always been very polite, but she had 
never dreamed that — but what he had been just 
the same to the other girls. 

" No," he continued, " there was a difference. 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 22? 

While it is true that with the careless duplicity 
which is the unfortunate habit of my sex, and 
once was mine, I have given similar assurances to 
other ladies, they were not so fully warranted by 
the fact ; and I now regret and ought perhaps to 
recall them ; whereas with you I am constrained 
to reinforce such former suggestions. Miss Van 
Riper, I have critically examined the state of my 
emotions ; and though I have at times doubted, 
and have somewhat distrusted my own judgment, 
I am satisfied upon a full, and I trust impartial, 
review of all the evidence, that I love you. I do 
not say that I adore you — or worship your foot- 
prints — or even that I love you as I had never 
thought to love or as no woman was ever loved 
before ; for I am convinced that such protestations 
are in most cases, and would probably be in the 
present, extreme and misleading. 

" I could, indeed, find it easy to make them now, 
in the excitement of my emotions, and to think 
them true ; but reason teaches me, and candor 
compels me to admit, that such passionate avow- 
als should not be wholly credited. 

" I find that you are essential to my happiness. 
In this I may of course be mistaken ; and you will 
therefore regard this as but the expression of a 
personal opinion upon the subject. As for my- 
self, I give you no assurance of exceptional merits. 
There is always danger that an individual may be 
disqualified, either by undue vanity or by exces- 



228 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

sive modesty, to pass upon his own value. I can 
only say that the disposition of persons in polite 
society is to conceal or repress the baser elements 
of character, and to exhibit to the best advantage 
the more attractive qualities, — a fact which should 
not be overlooked in forming our estimates of each 
other ; and with this caution I must leave you to 
your own conclusions, as I am left to mine." 

By this time Miss Van Riper's face was a study. 
She was old enough, and sufficiently self-pos- 
sessed, to appreciate the reasonableness of Mr. 
Jones's propositions, and felt, too, that his case 
ought not to be prejudiced by his extraordinary 
candor ; but she had long looked forward to this 
moment, and had well-matured ideas as to the 
proprieties of the occasion, — none of which had 
been regarded. Her right hand was still free. 
She clasped it with the left, — feeling that some- 
thing was due from somebody, — and wondered 
whether at this point she ought to treat his re- 
marks as complete. She hesitated; and Mr. 
Jones, perceiving that he had omitted some- 
thing, asked her to be his wife; and she, with 
downcast eyes and averted conscience, told him 
she was so surprised — that it was all so new and 
strange — that she really had hardly thought of 
marriage — and was he sure that he would always 
love her just the same? He replied that he had 
asked himself that question, and that while he 
could not honestly assure her that it was abso- 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 229 

lutely certain, he felt the greatest confidence in 
the stability of his affection. 

It had been well for Miss Van Riper had she 
been content with this guarded statement of the 
case ; but how could maiden heart surrender to 
a preamble and set of resolutions? She would 
make some effort to secure her rights; and she 
began by being so surprised that he should think 
her beautiful. This surprise, having really no in- 
ducement in fact, was most unfortunate. He had 
chosen her with his eyes open and without the 
aid of any optical illusion; partly because of a 
certain maturity which corresponded well with 
his own, but which in most ladies postdates the 
heyday of youth and beauty; and, in spite of his 
vow, he was terribly tried by this uncalled-for 
remark, and especially because he knew that in 
the days of his duplicity he had indulged in 
sundry conventional compliments which might 
have misled her even to the extent indicated by 
her expression of surprise. 

But he was fairly challenged, and the great 
principle of his new life was at stake. He was 
tempted for a moment to compromise by some 
general observation that mere beauty had never 
been the chief inspiration of his love ; but in her 
eyes he read a larger expectation, and he must 
answer it. So he told her, kindly but firmly, that 
he had not intended to imply, nor could he hon- 
estly permit her to assume, that her beauty, though 



23O FRAGMENTS IN PROSE, 

entirely satisfactory to him, was of that trans- 
cendant quality to compel especial and exclu- 
sive homage ; and trusted that he would not be 
misunderstood if in his desire to be entirely frank 
he took occasion to correct any false impression 
which he might inadvertently have given her on 
this subject. Then she supposed, with tears in 
her voice, that since he was not very sure of his 
love, and considered her such a fright, he must 
have some other reason for wishing to marry her, 
and she was sure she could n't imagine what it 
was unless he wanted her fortune — and she 
wished she had n't a dollar, so she did. Now, 
nothing could have been more absurd and un- 
just than this suggestion, and Mr. Jones hastened 
to assure her that her suspicion — if, indeed, she 
really entertained it — was wholly unfounded ; 
that her appearance was really most attractive 
to him, and that as to her fortune, while he could 
not honestly assert that he had not considered it, 
yet he sincerely believed that it had not influenced 
him to any appreciable extent. But it was too 
late. She, who had long held herself in readiness 
to reward the love of some honest man, in the 
face of this fine opportunity found her purpose 
paralysed by the blow to her vanity, and she did 
what most women would have done under the 
same exasperation. Mr. Jones withdrew, sadly 
conscious that he had deserved a better fate, and 
went to his club. 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 23 1 

It was the first time he had been there since 
his recovery, and the cheery greetings of several 
friends almost persuaded him for the moment 
that he had something left to live for. Here he 
found a note, which had been awaiting him some 
days, inviting him to dine that evening with his 
old friend, Mrs. Axminster, and meet a few other 
old friends. This gave him a pang, for he re- 
membered that Miss Van Riper had spoken of 
this dinner as an engagement for the evening, 
and he was in no mood to appear again so soon 
in the presence of one who had so cruelly mis- 
judged him. True, he felt a momentary impulse 
to go and be feverishly brilliant, and stun her 
with reckless gayety ; but he knew well enough 
that this suggestion had come to him out of some 
novel or drama and not from his real feeling, 
and this was sufficient. He had fought a good 
fight that day for downright honesty, and, though 
sorely wounded, he was still loyal to the cause ; 
and so he at once despatched to Mrs. Axminster, 
not a mere formal regret, but a note in which — 
as may hereafter appear — he set forth fully and 
frankly the reasons which impelled him to de- 
cline her kind invitation. 

He had hardly done this when he was ap- 
proached by a friend who requested him to sign 
the application of a certain Mr. Plush for mem- 
bership in the Club. He hesitated. He had 
frequently given his indorsement to such appli- 



232 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

cations, and sometimes in behalf of applicants 
less worthy; but that was before his sense of 
responsibility had been awakened. He felt that 
he could not conscientiously vouch for this man 
as possessed of all the qualifications which, in his 
judgment, such a Club ought to require ; and so 
he declined to sign, and, disdaining subterfuge, 
candidly explained that he could not cordially 
recommend the applicant as a gentleman worthy 
of admission ; and of course his words were 
promptly, and more than fully, reported by the 
indignant friend to the aspersed candidate, who 
with singular obtuseness failed to appreciate Mr. 
Jones's conscientious scruples, and incontinently 
charged him with malice, hypocrisy, and sundry 
other sins of the Litany. 

If now we recur to the note which had been 
sent to Mrs. Axminster, and follow it into her 
hands, we shall find that estimable lady in a state 
of perturbation hardly to be expected, and which 
will require a little explanation. 

Mrs. Axminster was a widow of mature age, 
whose buoyant spirits and persistent charms had 
long excited the envy of her juniors. During 
the few years of her widowhood she had been 
conspicuous as an example of the sanitary effect 
of well-modulated grief. She bloomed in weeds 
as if they nurtured her ; and she had kept her 
heart as fresh as her complexion, — a result due 
in part, it may be, to the fact that the late 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 233 

Mr. Axminster had never drawn largely upon 
her store of sentiment. 

Her return to fashionable society was an event 
of great importance, especially as it was freely 
said that she was about to bestow her hand upon 
one of her many admirers, generally conceded 
to be the identical Mr. Plush, already mentioned 
as a candidate for other honors. 

This rumor had reached her ears, and was not 
altogether unwelcome. She was content that 
society should regard her as a flower still fresh 
and fair enough to pluck, and did not seriously 
resent the insinuation that she might — possibly 
— be overcome by the pleadings of some favored 
suitor; but she regarded the more specific de- 
tails of the rumor with apprehension; since, in 
fact, Mr. Plush, although attentive enough to 
give color to the report, had not as yet culmi- 
nated, and since, moreover, she had definitely 
decided against him in advance, and felt the 
rank injustice to other admirers of an unfounded 
rumor of this discouraging nature. 

And this is not surprising. No woman ex- 
posed to the danger of a second husband desires 
to have the risk unfairly diminished ; and in the 
present instance Mrs. Axminster was especially 
annoyed, because she had fully determined, upon 
a careful review of her possible suitors, that in 
case Mr. Jones should reciprocate, as seemed 
extremely probable, the marked preference of 



234 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

which she was conscious, and attempt to over- 
persuade her, he should have a fair chance ; and 
while she had, as a matter of extra precaution, 
denied to certain other possible candidates the 
rumor of her engagement, she had been pre- 
vented by Mr. Jones's long illness from reassur- 
ing him on this point, and felt keenly the wrong 
which had been done him. Indeed, she had at 
once diagnosed his disease as a bitter disappoint- 
ment with typhoid complications, and regretted 
that the usages of her world forbade her to offer 
the only specific ; and upon his recovery she had 
planned a little dinner and invited him with the 
secret purpose to convince him, by all delicate 
and seemly methods, of the prematurity of his 
despair. 

It was therefore with more than ordinary anxi- 
ety that she awaited his long-delayed response, 
and with peculiar interest that she read his note, 
which ran thus : — 

My dear Mrs. Axminster, — I have but just 
found your kind invitation at the Club, and hasten to 
reply, regretting the embarrassment which the delay 
may have caused you. With thanks for the kindness 
which prompted it, I must yet decline the invitation. 
In saying this, I feel that it is due to our long friendship, 
the memory of which is very dear to me, that I reject 
the artifice too frequently employed on such occasions, 
and tell you frankly that to be of your party this even- 
ing would necessitate my meeting conventionally a lady 



MR. JOXESS EXPERIMENT. 235 

— whom I need not name — with whom my present 
relations are such as would render the occasion ex- 
tremely painful to me and possibly unpleasant to her. 
I trust I do not seem by this to imply any censure ; I 
simply mean that I lack the fortitude to turn so soon 
from the grave of my slain hope and face the slayer — 
alas ! still so dear to me — and the gay world in which 
she moves. 

Very sincerely yours, 

F. Mandeville Jones. 

Now when Mrs. Axminster read this note, she 
was ignorant of Mr. Jones's morning call on Miss 
Van Riper and the disaster thereof, and of the 
fact that Mr. Jones had been apprised of the 
invitation to that lady; and of course, reading 
his words in the dim light of what she knew 
and the full glare of what she believed about 
his state of feeling, she could hardly doubt that 
the lady to whom he referred, whom he would 
necessarily meet in coming to her house, and 
who had slain his hope, was — herself. The fact 
is, that Mr. Jones had for some years been on 
the best of terms with Mrs. Axminster. Before 
her husband's death her house had been to him 
one of those quasi homes in which bachelors 
rejoice ; and even at that time he had felt it his 
privilege to respond sympathetically to that yearn- 
ing for sentiment which possessed her, and to 
some extent influenced her manner and prompted 
the expression of her feelings; and during the 



236 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

period of her seclusion as a widow he had been 
one of the few excepted from the ban, and had 
not felt it his duty to repress any natural sym- 
pathy or belittle the esteem in which he held 
her. Indeed, the temptation to a man of the 
world — as he then was — to give full measure of 
devotion to any charming woman who seems to 
like it, is clear and distinct; and Mr. Jones was 
not at that stage of his development superior 
to it ; so it is not surprising that she should have 
regarded his homage as more especial and exclu- 
sive than it really was. This is one of the mis- 
takes commonly made by women who know 
themselves, but believe men to be honest. 

But there was no time for speculation, even if 
there were room for it. 

It was already afternoon, and Mr. Jones must 
be saved from his error, and that right speedily; 
and with a palpitating heart and a blush that 
startled her into thoughts of long ago, she hastily 
penned these lines : — 

My dear Mr. Jones, — It is all a mistake. There is 
no reason why you should not meet the lady in question 
as usual ; and she will be very much disappointed if you 
do not come. Irene. 

This note, which was quickly despatched to 
Mr. Jones, transformed that melancholy person as 
if by magic ; for of course he read between the 
lines that Miss Van Riper had already repented 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 237 

of her hasty action and had made a confidante of 
her dear friend, Mrs. Axminster, who therefore 
fully understood his trouble and sought to relieve 
it. " Dear, good Mrs. Axminster," — thought he, 
— " what a kindly old soul she is ; I '11 adopt her 
as a mother." 

The filial quality of his new affection was due 
to the fact that she was a few years his senior, — a 
fact which on the other hand had given to her 
feeling no maternal character, so much does 
the point of view control the deference paid to 
age. 

At the appointed hour Mr. Jones appeared, 
radiant with joy and eager for the penitential 
word or glance which surely awaited him ; but he 
was disappointed to find Miss Van Riper sur- 
rounded by other guests and apparently indiffer- 
ent to his presence. He had no difficulty, 
however, in getting a moment apart with his 
beaming hostess; and pressing her hands with 
unmistakable fervor, he called her an angel, and 
vowed that he owed her the happiness of his life, 
and she called him a foolish boy to be so easily 
discouraged, and the next moment whispered to 
her dearest friend that she had at last consented 
to become Mrs. Jones, but wished nothing said 
about it at present ; and within five minutes her 
dearest friend had enjoined the same secrecy 
upon the other ladies present, including the 
astounded Miss Van Riper; and before dinner 



238 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

was announced, the gentlemen had severally been 
pledged to the same silence. 

Now it was most natural from the hostess's 
point of view that Mr. Jones escorted her to the 
table and occupied the place of honor; and most 
extraordinary from his point of view that Miss 
Van Riper was placed at the other end of the table 
and next to Mr. Plush, concerning whom his 
candid opinion has been already recorded; and 
quite clear from their respective points of view 
that Mr. Jones was the most shameless villain of 
the age, — poor Mr. Jones, whose only aim it was 
to be perfectly honest and sincere ! In fact, so 
profound was this conviction that when Mr. 
Plush inquired of Miss Van Riper whether in her 
opinion their hostess had secured full value for 
herself in the transaction referred to, she replied 
with some intensity that she regarded Mr. Jones 
as a minus nonentity, — an estimate which Mr. 
Plush facetiously characterized as excessively 
high. 

The hour wore on right merrily, with laugh 
and jest and tinkling table-talk, and now and 
then a sly allusion, closely veiled, to a certain 
recent social event; and yet Mr. Jones was not 
supremely happy. He was watching Miss Van 
Riper, alert to catch the tender glance that 
should assure him of her yielding heart, and she 
seemed never to see him. True, it might have 
been her maiden modesty — the half-shame of 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 239 

her conscious passion — that hid her tell-tale 
eyes from him ; it might have been some proper 
feminine instinct that prompted her to hang upon 
the words of that inferior Mr. Plush as if he 
were an oracle ; but still he wished it otherwise, 
and grew uneasy. It was not enough that his 
hostess, in all the effulgence of her joy, beamed 
full-orbed upon him ; he never felt her beams, 
but gazed disconsolate upon the cold and distant 
star. At last, perplexed and desperate, he 
turned to Mrs. Axminster and said in a low and 
anxious tone, "It cannot be — you must have 
deceived yourself — I see no sign of feeling ; " 
and she replied, " Hush, dear! be patient — I 
must play the hostess now." Strangely enough, 
there was something in her words, or perhaps 
in the fond glance that accompanied them, which 
disturbed him ; and when, a moment later, she 
quietly directed his attention to the couple oppo- 
site, and remarked in a confidential undertone 
that she believed that Stella Van Riper was en- 
gaged, or as good as engaged, to Mr. Plush, he 
looked at her in amazement, which slowly settled 
into a sort of stupor in which his dizzy mind was 
vaguely conscious of some horrible mistake. He 
tried to think what it was; but the lady on his 
right insisted on telling him about some people 
of his name she had met last summer, and had to 
be satisfied upon the question of relationship. 
He endeavored to recall the exact words of his 



240 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

note to Mrs. Axminster and her reply ; and the 
gentleman just beyond that lady insisted that he 
favor the table with the story of his interview 
with the colored evangelist. 

He strove to remember whether in either note 
the name of the lady in question had been men- 
tioned, and had just reached a sickening conclu- 
sion in the negative and begun to shiver with 
apprehension of the possible truth, when the com- 
pany arose and the ladies withdrew. 

Then with the cigars came the opportunity for 
a moment's calm reflection ; and closing his ears 
to the lively sallies of his companions, he swiftly 
reviewed the incidents of the day and reached the 
conclusion that by the unrestrained exercise of 
simple honesty he had forever estranged the 
woman he loved, and become ridiculously in- 
volved with the woman he had intended to adopt 
as a mother. 

But was he really engaged? He now saw 
clearly enough that his foolishly frank note to 
Mrs. Axminster had been construed by that ex- 
cellent person as a note of despair, evoked by the 
rumor of her engagement to another; and he 
could hardly doubt that her reply was intended 
as a gracious acceptance of his implied devotion ; 
but such a correspondence — so indefinite, and 
founded upon a misunderstanding — could never 
be held to constitute a contract. The more he 
reflected upon it, the more comfortably certain 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 241 

he felt that in spite of appearances he was really 
not engaged, until he happened to recall the 
general atmosphere of the meeting with his hos- 
tess, and how he had held her hands and called 
her an angel and told her how happy she had 
made him ; and then he felt clammy and yearned 
for the fool-killer. Clearly, there was nothing 
left him but to linger this evening, and by another 
frank avowal, and a more explicit statement of 
his experience with Miss Van Riper, explain his 
conduct and set matters aright. It would be dis- 
agreeable. He was not a man of lively imagina- 
tion, but he could easily anticipate that. Still, is 
must be done, and at once. 

Having reached this conclusion, he felt some- 
what relieved, and was about to resume his func- 
tions as a social being, when the Rev. Mr. Sur- 
plice, his old friend and pastor, drew him aside, 
and, claiming the privilege of his office and his 
long friendship for both parties, warmly congrat- 
ulated him upon his engagement, — adding that 
he had already taken the same liberty with dear 
Mrs. Axminster and had been deeply touched by 
her frank expression of the happiness she felt in 
at last yielding to the impulse of her affections. 
Mr. Jones gasped ; but even here his presence of 
mind did not utterly fail him. 

He inquired of his reverend torturer when he 
had first heard of the affair and whether he 
thought the rumor had reached others ; and was 
16 



242 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

informed that Mrs. Axminster had told Mrs. 
Surplice just before dinner, — in confidence, — 
that Mrs. Surplice had told him, and that he, 
from his general knowledge of that good lady's 
facility in imparting information of such mat- 
ters, had no doubt that all the ladies in the 
party now possessed the secret ; and several of the 
gentlemen had already indicated to him some 
knowledge of the situation ; and indeed he, the 
speaker, saw no reason to conceal an event so 
worthy to be known and so certain to delight 
the many dear friends of both parties. Mr. Jones 
did not respond as an irrepressibly happy man 
would have done ; and he felt distinctly less in- 
clined to linger this evening and have that under- 
standing with Mrs. Axminster. 

What could he do ? The gentlemen were now 
quitting the table to rejoin the ladies. He could 
hardly remain alone in the dining-room ; and in 
the drawing-room, alas ! what might befall ? He 
thought of suicide, flight, insanity, and the various 
other avenues of escape from trouble, and had 
about concluded that the only happy issue out 
of all his tribulation would be to awake and find 
that he had mistaken a harmless prancing night- 
mare for a real hungry lion looking for Jones, 
when he found himself in the other room and 
face to face with Miss Van Riper. She flushed 
angrily and would have avoided him ; but in an 
agony of despair he pressed forward and said to 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 243 

her, "May I not speak with you? I did not 
know — a terrible mistake." He paused. Her 
mild blue eye, in which until this day he had 
never seen an unpropitious gleam, now pierced 
him cruelly, and slowly, steadily, distinctly, she 
replied, " Mr. Jones, the catalogue of your mis- 
takes is becoming tiresome ; " and before he 
could rally she had passed away on- the arm of 
the objectionable Mr. Plush, who was smiling a 
horrid smile. From that moment his case grew 
steadily worse. The coldness of Miss Van Riper 
froze his marrow, and the frank partiality of his 
hostess quite unnerved him. He dared not go, 
and he feared to stay. The moment when he 
should be left alone with the charmed widow 
and driven to explanation, appeared to him more 
dreadful than the day of judgment, and seemed 
to approach more rapidly than to the doomed 
criminal comes the hour of execution ; and when, 
one by one, the guests had taken leave and the 
fair object of his apprehension turned to him and 
sweetly said, " At last, Mandeville, we are alone," 
he thought, "How happy are the dead — wher- 
ever they are ! " and then silently renewing his 
vow of utter frankness at all hazards, he spoke : 

" Mrs. Axminster, I desire, or rather I am 
compelled, to be perfectly candid with you — " 

Here we must draw the veil, not meaning 
thereby to imply that there was anything in the 
interview which might not properly be told, 



244 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

but simply because Mr. Jones, who has kindly 
and frankly given us the true story of his expe- 
rience up to this point, in the hope that it would 
be repeated as a warning to others, here drew 
the veil himself; and no amount of persuasion, 
nor even the threat of supplying the omission out 
of the writer's imagination, could induce him to 
furnish the details. He says that even as there 
are moments in a man's experience to which the 
world is not entitled, so there are centuries which 
a man has the right to forget if possible, — and 
that this was one of them. Of course his compu- 
tation of time must be regarded as inaccurate; 
but the situation, so far as revealed, indicates 
that he may have had at least a most uncomfort- 
able quarter of an hour, and that there might be 
sufficient reason why even so candid a man might 
desire to withhold the particulars from a cold and 
merely curious world ; and so we must be con- 
tent to take up the narrative where he did, a 
little later in the evening, when, haggard and 
wan-eyed, he paused a moment on the pavement 
just outside the door and assured himself in a 
feeble voice that he had only tried to be honest, 
and then mechanically took his way toward the 
Club. At the same moment Mrs. Axminster, 
tearfully furious, was engaged in writing notes to 
her confidantes of the evening, informing them 
that for reasons quite sufficient, based as they 
were upon conduct unbecoming a gentleman, she 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 245 

had forever terminated the particular relations of 
which they had been advised, and hoped that no 
reference would be made to them, — which of 
course secured a wide publicity for her unfortu- 
nate affair with the recreant Jones., and a general 
denunciation of that unhappy monster. 

Arrived at the Club, he took his seat in the cafe, 
and told a waiter to bring him a pony of brandy. 
Having tossed this off, he ordered a four-in-hand 
of the same. He was now looking wild, and a 
sort of hilarity, forced and unnatural, began to 
manifest itself. 

About half a bottle later, the gentleman who 
had asked him to sign the application of Mr. 
Plush came in, and at sight of Mr. Jones walked 
up to him with some emphasis and said that he 
had been thinking over Mr. Jones's action in that 
matter, and had resolved to demand an explana- 
tion of the aspersions cast upon his friend, adding 
that Mr. Plush also would avail himself of the first 
convenient opportunity to exact specifications of 
the serious charge which had been made against 
him. By this time the guiding star of his new 
life glimmered but faintly through a vinous mist ; 
and rising with difficulty, he grasped the hand of 
the astonished speaker, and in thick but fervent 
tones declared that — Plush was all right — a per- 
fect gentleman — and that he longed to encounter 
the man who doubted it — and insisted on ring- 
ing for something to Plush's health ; but very soon 



246 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE. 

his mollified companion detected in poor Jones's 
tangled cerebration signs which alarmed him, 
and calling for a carriage took him home and 
summoned his physician. The brain fever which 
followed quite puzzled the doctor, who was loath 
to believe that a dinner-party, and a glass or two 
after it, could have produced such dire results ; 
but Jones, on regaining his senses, evinced no 
surprise. He quietly resumed his place as a 
lawyer and citizen, and after a time reappeared in 
society, where he was kindly received ; for it was 
generally conceded, after the unscientific manner 
of the parlor world, that the brain fever must have 
been coming on for a day or two before it was 
recognized, and fully accounted for the exceptions 
to his usually conventional behavior. Indeed, 
Miss Van Riper herself was led to take this view 
of it ; and when, some months later, he recurred 
to the subject still near to his heart, in terms 
which are usually considered passionate and 
wildly extravagant, and in which the protestations 
of his unique and eternal love vied with rhapso- 
dies over her peerless beauty, she was convinced 
that his reason was fully restored, and said that 
she did n't see how they could be married before 
autumn. 

And so Mr. Jones survived his experiment of a 
day ; and whether much the worse for it can 
hardly be known, though it is said that he 
shows at times a disposition to be cynical which 



MR. JONES'S EXPERIMENT. 247 

rather surprises his friends. For instance, he 
sometimes says that honesty may be the best 
policy in a very primitive community of men 
only, or in heaven ; but that in the best circles 
of intermediate society the man who gives way 
to his sincerity, as a regular habit, is marked 
for destruction. 



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